Are you using the right social media profile?

Everyone says to have a Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn page but is that the right place for your business to be?
There are so many options available to you out there that it can seem that using the big three are a necessity, but have you honestly thought about what you want to achieve from your social media, what you do and who are your target audience is?

Facebook is best for companies that have products. It can work across many other boards but mainly the best brands that work on Facebook are retail outlets, as you can see from this article about the top Facebook pages. This is similar to Pinterest, fantastic if you are an artist, sell products or have something tangible that you want to promote to others. It can be pretty difficult to utilise Pinterest without having something that your potential clients can see from you that they then will want to purchase.

Twitter is fantastic for engaging with potential referrers of your service or product but you must remember to prevent yourself from being a megaphone the people on Twitter will want to like you before they start vouching for your business, so remember this is a slow and enjoyable process. You will build your Tribe and find the people that most want to refer you business. You can gently tell people about what you do by mentioning what you’re getting up to and where you are going. If you don’t like chatting with people or feel like you don’t have enough time to fully commit to this, then you may want to re-think about Twitter.

 

With so many social media profiles out there you need to see which ones will work best for you, your brand and which ones will have your target market. From the professional LinkedIn and Ecademy to the conversational Facebook and Twitter (with so much in between) take some time to research, ask questions and potentially test one at a time before you commit to all of them at once. After all, doing one fantastically is so much better than doing them all badly.
Which social media profiles do you use? Have you truly thought about how they can benefit your business?

Written by

Matt Hodkinson is Founder and Chief Listening Officer at Influence Agents, where his early adoption, and subsequent research into the best techniques and tools for social media monitoring have seen him gain worldwide recognition as a thought leader in the area. Regularly invited to speak on BBC television and radio, Matt also speaks to audiences around the UK, in an effort to inform brands and business owners on best practice for turning an ear to the consumer. Social media has the power to bring better alignment between product output and consumer satisfaction – but only when you listen to what the consumer wants. Matt advocates the use of co-creation to welcome consumers and existing customers into an immersive, creative role, as well as empowering customers to serve each other, post-sale. Matt lives in Surrey, UK, with his amazing wife and 2 beautiful daughters. If not working or enjoying family time, you’ll find him enjoying his other passion … cutting up the slopes on his snowboard.
  • Slokenberg

    this is so true, i’m a trainer on social media within several company’s in the netherlands. and i see that some companies just start to do.. something.. like euh… and they do’nt know where it is supposed to lead.
    make a profile of your company and look for the website and profile that will give you a bennefit.

    • http://www.matthodkinson.com Matt Hodkinson

      If people only had that objective or reason to use a specific platform!  That’s one of the first things we discuss on the F7 Programme.

  • http://twitter.com/SalonManagement Nexus Revolution

    Twitter provides the most engagement for us@salonmanagement:twitter , followed by the ability to be apart of targeted discussions on Linkedin with industry specific groups and interests. To be honest I’d drop Facebook in an instant if it were not such an expected social media ‘norm’ to round out one’s online presense. For a full list of the social media channels we use see them all at http://XeeMe.com/salonmanagement

  • http://twitter.com/StiBeshev S. Beshev

     In our times the best strategy is to hire a social media expert. You can lose a lot of time and money doing the wrong thing…. 

    • http://www.matthodkinson.com Matt Hodkinson

      I would qualify that further – get COACHED by those who use social media on a daily basis FOR THEIR JOB, but still represent yourself online.

  • Steverockss

    GReat bloog !

  • http://twitter.com/grattongirl Sarah-Jayne Gratton

    Very well put!  Twitter is a two-way, not a monologue conversation!