Social Media – Vital For Your Business
If you are serious about your business, you need to get serious about Social Media. There are many reasons for every business to have social media profiles – and one of the most important reasons is that your competition are likely using this form of promotion and advertising. If they’re not now, they soon will be and you’ll be left playing “catch up.”
While most businesses are familiar with Facebook pages, this is not the only social media site you should be actively engaged on. While Twitter may not be your “cup of tea,” did you know that Twitter usage is growing faster, especially among the young adult demographic, faster than Facebook right now? Many younger adults are leaving Facebook or are not as active as they once were and are turning to Twitter.
Claiming or creating your Social Media profiles serves many purposes, including the major purpose of branding. Business branding and having as many social media sites as possible with your business brand is vital. It also helps to prevent copycat imposters from attempting to deceive others into believing they are you, through setting up a social media account that appears to be your business.
While fake accounts can often be dealt with and removed, it can take a lot of work and effort. In the meantime, the damage is being done to your reputation. Why wait when you can be proactive and have your social media profiles created before this happens?
Even IF you do not intend to use every Social Media site, it is still important to register a profile with your business name with as many as possible. Having you as the registered profile “owner” ensures that someone else won’t register a social profile on the same site using your business name. It prevents someone else basically trying to appear as if they are you.
Some Important Reasons To Consider Social Media:
- Interact with other people who may be potential customers
- Interact with present customers while keeping your brand and/or business in their mind
- Learn what others think about your business. Do you need to improve in some areas?
- Advise your present and potential customers/clients of present and upcoming promotions.
- Branding, Branding, Branding!
Time Consumption of Social Media Profile Creation
Yes. It is time consuming. Not only should you register your social media profiles, but you ought to set them up correctly. This takes a great deal of time. It’s probably one of the key reasons why you might want to hire a professional to help you with this.
While there are automated software programs that you can purchase a membership or one time fee to register on your behalf, this is not recommended. Social Profiles should be created manually as no two are exactly alike. Some have different maximum numbers of characters they will allow. Some want your phone number. Some require a date of birth and other information from you.
This is probably the type of information you want to only share with a professional that you’ve communicated with and not some automated process that who knows does what with the information you’ve provided.
Each social media profile has its own unique issues or requirements, and sometimes, these are not dealt with in the best way possible by auto-generation. Manual generation is preferred, but time consuming.
If you need help with this (and you probably do if you’re a small business), call us today at (519) 940-3504 or email [email protected]. We’ve got the people and resources that can help you get this done and also, help you create an ongoing strategy while we watch out for trends and changes that occur.
What About The No Follow Back Links? Isn’t That Bad?
Many social media sites do automatically make any links you create as “nofollow.” For a long time, some people in the SEO space advised to only spend your time on backlinks that were “do follow,” however their advice is wrong. Especially when it comes to Social Media.
Let’s look at the SEO issue of nofollow links. If your site only has “do follow” backlinks, that’s going to be a red flag to Google. It’s not natural to have only those types of links, and you need a good natural mix, especially if you are actively engaged in link building.
Social Media and nofollow backlinks offer much more than simply an SEO opportunity. Social Media offers marketing and promotional opportunities that can help you, regardless of where you rank in search engine results pages, and over the long term, with the additional exposure, may indrectly help you to rank better than you do now.
Social Media Site Short List
Ok, so now that you know you need to be making use of Social Media, and some of the reasons, let’s get to our short list of the top social media sites you should be creating profiles on.
We’re not going to provide you with the direct “register” links as they sometimes change frequently. Instead, here’s our list and you can look for the “register” link from their front page.
1. Facebook. – Having a Facebook “page” for your business is vital today.
2. Twitter – Twitter is extremely important. While Facebook is still the most important social media site to have a presence, Twitter is gaining more and more users in the younger age groups. Twitter use has actually increased in the past year, while Facebook has remained the same – neither growing or decreasing.
3. Pinterest – Pinterest ought to be a priority especially if you are marketing to ladies. According to recent research conducted by Pew Internet, 42% of ALL women online use Pinterest, compared to 13% of all online men using the site to share and look at images.
Be sure to set up a “Pinterest For Business” account and not just a personal account.
4. LinkedIn – Professional and business networking site has been around since 2003. While you might not benefit directly from the networking possibilities that are available here, it still is highyl recommended that you set up both your own personal and business profiles here. Interestingly, according to research, LinkedIn usage has increased significantly over the past year.
5. WordPress.com – Yes, it’s a blogging site, and even though you may already have a blog on your own website, it’s still important to get your business profile on others, including WordPress.com. Remember, it’s about branding as well as making sure an imposter isn’t trying to appear as you elsewhere.
Use blogging sites to post snippets from your content on your websites and link back to your site.
6. Blogger – A blogging platform owned by Google. Advice is the same as for WordPress.com, above. You’ll need to create the Blog using your Google Account.
7. Youtube – Again, you’ll need to create your profile here with your Google Account. As an aside, do you know that video is now the most popular form of medium on the Internet and is an awesome way to capture attention? If you don’t have any video(s) to post on Youtube, we may be able to help you with that.
8. en.gravatar.com – While not exactly a “social media” site per se, we’re including it here as having a gravatar (your business logo could be used, for example) along with a registered email address helps with your branding. Commenting on a WordPress.com site using your registered email address may include your gravatar beside your comment.
9. Tumblr.com – Another blogging platform that also allows you to post images, text, links, video, audio and quotes. It’s a very popular platform and you can post to your tumblr blog via email as well.
10. Scribd.com – Share your documents and make them available to others on this document and book sharing website.Documents on scribd get indexed by search engines and are in the results pages.
Not A Comprehensive List
The above list is not intended to be a comprehensive list of social media sites where you should create business profiles, but is a good place to start. There are actually dozens more that you can take advantage of, and over time, and as quickly as possible, you should try to “claim” your business profile on them by creating them.
It is a big job but it is very important for your own business branding to do so, as well as to be able to take advantage of further promotion of your business and its activities.
Discover Fake Accounts Not Set Up By You
While some consider it vain to google your own name or business, the fact is you need to do this regularly so you can see whether an imposter has set up fake accounts in your name. If you find them, report them to the appropriate site and request they be removed.
You need to take steps to protect your brand and your business.
This Is A LOT Of Work!
Yes, it can be a lot of work, especially if you are just starting out. Why not take advantage of our knowledge and assistance? We can help you not just create your business profiles but come up with a content posting strategy that is effective and that isn’t simply a random exercise. Make sure your social media involvement has some strategy and purpose.
Local businesses face a fast paced and changing digital era, and it can be tough to compete. We’ve helped a number of businesses obtain and keep high local search rankings which has helped them grow and keep customers that their competition would otherwise have had.
You can wait and “think about it” – but while you are waiting, your competition is getting stronger and stronger in their efforts, which, the longer you wait, the more difficult it will be to catch up. Why play catch up when you can get ahead? Give us a call now at (519) 940-3504 or send us an email.