Social Media Tips
Tuesday 18th August 2009 | 2 comments
About 6.5 million Australians belong to at least one online social media network, and two-thirds of internet users looked at other people's content on social networking sites during 2008. And it's growing, fast. It's not just about being social either, despite the popular name - businesses can use many of the tools to great advantage.
Applications such as Twitter, Linked-In and Facebook fan pages are particularly useful for business, and blogging (either through your own blog or by guest posting on other blogs) can be a great way to gain credibility and brand awareness.
Some tips and tricks:
- Have a strategy and a consistent approach. If it's about your business, then stick to (mainly) business related postings. You can often have a separate account for private and business use, or use one platform such as Facebook for personal stuff and another such as Twitter for business postings.
- Be authentic, but not necessarily completely candid. Everything you post is public and permanent, so your online persona is built up, layer by layer and hangs around for a long time in all its glory. Be consistent in your message...
- It's about building trust through real participation. Contribute helpful content, answer questions if you can and build up a reputation as knowledgeable on particular topics. Don't post endless advertorial - it is very off-putting and may even breach site rules.
- Be selective, take it slow and just pick one site to start with. Bear in mind that it can be quite time-consuming to build and maintain an online presence.
- Lurk a bit, see how people use whichever application you pick, check out any etiquette rules before you leap into it all.
- Use Google, YouTube + help pages for tips. For starters, have a look at http://mashable.com/ for lots of helpful tips and check out the Twitter guide for business at http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/best_practices.
- Have fun - it can be both useful and very enjoyable to be part of an online community.
If you'd like to come to a Twitter for Business briefing in Sydney on Tuesday 1 September 12 -2pm, email contact me with the words 'Twitter for Business' in the message.
Tag: tips
