A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media

What is Social Media?
Social media is the group name for websites that offer interaction between users.
They include blogs, message boards and sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

Why should I bother?
Social Media is a way for people to talk to each other in a way that has never been possible before.

Here are some facts:

• Over 100million videos are viewed every day on YouTube


• Facebook has over 250 million active users


• 3,000,000 messages are sent each day via Twitter


• Over 1,000,000,000 links to blog posts, web links, news stories, photos and notes are shared on Facebook each week.

Even if you think you’ve never used social networking, you probably have by reading a blog or watching a video from a Google search...

How Can Social Media Help My Business?
Social media gives you the opportunity to build your brand. It gives you interaction with your existing clients and potential customers. Most importantly, it gives you a way of talking with them, rather than at them.

It’s like networking, but on-line.

You’ll discover new ways to promote your business and the opportunity to increase your ranking on Google and other search engines. It can help you with PR, customer service, loyalty-building, collaboration, networking, thought-leadership and customer acquisition.

The Rules1. Listen
Just listen and observe. Research who is out there and who you want to reach. Join sites you are interested in but sit on your hands and resist the urge to start straight away. Good news travels fast... bad news (or comments) travel even faster!

2. Plan
Decide how you are going to use Social Media and work out the time and resources you will plough into it. If you need help, ask for it...

3. Engage
Think conversation not sales pitch. Even on the internet, people buy from people. Let your prospective clients get to know you and your thoughts and don’t start shouting your sales pitch as it just won’t work.

4. Measure & Review
Like all marketing, you need to know it is giving you a return on investment. Analyse website traffic, enquiries etc to see what works and don’t assume that social media will be the answer to everything!

Summary
Social media is here to stay, but without a plan of how we are trying to use it within our marketing mix, it is easy to waste our time and money. However, by putting together a clear plan of who we are trying to target, with which medium and defined messages can help you to interact with clients and potential customers to strengthen your brand and grow your business.

Many businesses I know have begun their social media experience by 'dipping a toe in the water'. And with training in how to plan their use of the different sites appropriate to their business (and in some cases, help writing blogs and posts) have grown its use so that it is now an integral part of their marketing.

If you would like any further advice, do give me a call for a no-obligation chat about using social media in your business - I look forward to hearing from you!

Hannah

Hannah Sookias
Sookias Media  Tel: 01283 808460 www.sookiasmedia.com
Digital PR - Blog Writing - Social Media Training - Articles - Features - Public Relations

Have UK businesses got the 'back to school' feeling?

There's something about autumn in the UK that gets everyone feeling that it is time to get back to business.

Perhaps it is the schools starting their new terms or the fact that business men and women have allowed themselves time off, to recharge their batteries and decide how and where to focus their energies.

So after all the recession difficulties over the last few months, I am pleased that this September is no different – backed up by today’s news that the British economy is showing positive signs of improvement.

So what can businesses do to help them become stronger over the coming months? I believe there are 7 important steps to help you business grow:

1. Dust off your business plan - know what you are trying to achieve and decide how you are going to get there.
2. Don’t try and do it all yourself. Use a sounding board and seek out experienced guidance to make the best use of your time.
3. Develop strategies to identify untapped opportunities. ‘Thinking out of the box’ is a well-worn but ever useful phrase to remember.
4. Spend time with clients to understand what they really want and to listen to their needs. If your business is unable to help them, see if you can recommend someone who can.
5. Check how your company is promoting itself. Are you promotions successful i.e. giving out the right messages and are they being heard by the right people?
6. The media loves good news stories. What have you been doing that they could report on? Can you issue the stories yourself or do you need external help?
7. Look at your promotional strategy – is it working for you? Do you need to investigate whether more use of social media, or digital marketing is required?
   

If you’d like to know more, do give me a call on 01283 808460 or come along to one of my autumn workshops. The next two are:

17 September Make the Most of Branding & Blogging £125.00
22 September Grow Your Business £ 50.00

Bookings can be made on-line at http://www.businesstipsandadvice.co.uk/ or by emailing me, Hannah@copywritingandpr.com.

Hannah Sookias, Founder - The Write Solution http://www.copywritingandpr.com/