Are you running a business and not doing Social Media yet?

If so, I urge you to reconsider.

And don’t get me wrong: the decision to get on to any Social Media platform should not be taken lightly. You need to know what’s coming at you and whether you can handle it. But that is not the first step.

The first step is to realise the potential that Social Media has for your business.

What is this potential?

The aim of all communications is to get yourself into people’s minds. This is true whether you sell a product or a service or whether you fight for an idea.

But usually you don’t convince people the first time round. You need to communicate more than once, and never has this been easier than today: Social Media allows you to reach out, regularly, to many people at once.

Even more important than the numbers is the quality of the contacts.

In Social Media only those people who have some kind of interest follow you. It means that you don’t waste time talking to people who couldn’t care less. You talk to those, and only to those, who are interested.

Regular contact with those who are interested – every marketer would have paid a fortune for that just ten years ago.

Now we can have it (almost) for free.

The land of fresh

But the channel alone doesn’t guarantee success. Treat Social Media like advertising, use the marketing jargon of old, and it won’t work.

Social Media is the land of human language – fresh and personal. That’s why people sign-up and behind that stands another expectation: your readers want value and authenticity.

And it’s because people want things to be relevant and real that Social Media doesn’t hold the biggest promise to those who churn out the greatest number of messages but to those who have something helpful to say:

Get on our nerves and we switch-off. Give us added value and we look forward to your next post.

Being helpful

Take the example of an architect to see how valuable this can be.

In his private life and at work, he will come across many people who want to build a house – not this year but some time in the future. They are potential customers but will only become paying customers if they remember our architect by the time they decide to build their new home.

If he can convince them to sign-up to his Social Media channel, the real convincing can start: he can  post pictures and descriptions of his latest projects and he can give regular, valuable advice – maybe on all the things you have to look out for when planning your new home.

Done right, it is hard to see how it’s not going to bring him future business. It‘s a simple example of how you can build trust by being helpful.

Could that logic work for you?

If so, the next step is to choose the right platform for your Social Media activities.

In upcoming posts, I will introduce Social Media platforms, compare their strengths and weaknesses and weigh the time you have to invest against the chances of reaching the right people.

I start with the Blog. Click here to read Blogging is not just for extroverts.