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It’s true that consumers increasingly turn to social media to seek out customer service. But if you find that this is the case with your own business, then it’s time to introduce social media management into your customer-service workflow. Your customer-service team--even if it’s only one person--is more suited to the task of offering this sort of engagement. But if providing customer service via social media isn’t your primary concern, and you just prefer to maintain fast response times for real-time engagement, then it’s time to rethink your priorities.
Social networks help connect businesses that are partners, bringing them together and help spread brand awareness, even contribute to CSR.
As far as employees are concerned, social media helps colleagues from past companies stay in touch.
Facebook is launching Facebook for Work this year (2015) and there are social networks that are targeted towards businesses like Yammer from Microsoft.
Social networks help establish and spread the company culture within a business.
It depends what type of usage its is on work and if there is a balance between official and personal usage of social media.
Before letting your employees use social media on your company's behalf you have to first empower them with the right trainings in order to behave and communicate on social media in a way that strengthens the organization. If they are allowed to use social media and represent the organization there could be a lot of bad situations where they might will voice their personal opinion which could go against the organization.
Social media strengthen the organization but the organization has first to prepare the employees with the right trainings and policies in order to avoid unnecessary negative attention on social media for the organization.
Social networks are considered to be a powerful arena for online marketing. They provide a direct and targeted way to communicate with the relevant audience, and they require less spending than more traditional marketing techniques.
However, with the endless tasks involved in running and improving your business ops, dividing your time between all the available networks can become counterproductive.
Before you start spreading yourself too thin, consider the advantages and disadvantages of each social network and choose the most relevant ones for you. This comparative guide will help you decide which social media channels can work best for your business.
What’s it about?
No need for introduction. Facebook is the number one network for people all over the world to connect and share content. Brands that are active on Facebook get to update their followers on exciting news, promote special deals and hold occasional online contests. They also create focused ad campaigns that target a carefully selected audience.
Facebook was designed to encourage people to interact. The “Like” and “Share” buttons are viewed more than22 billion times a day, not only on the network itself but across millions of websites worldwide!
Who’s on board?
Only about1.23 billion people! 945 million of which say that they access the world’s largest social network through their mobile devices. With15.8% of all “internet-minutes” spent on Facebook, it’s clear that its users are on average more active than users of other social networks.
Sounds good. How do I get started?
The first thing is to create a Facebook Page for brands and companies. Using a personal Profile as a business presence is frowned upon, and Groups have limited functionality as marketing platforms.
After you established a great page, you need to come up with a posting plan that will best suit your target market: How many times per day should you post? Are there specific hours that yield better engagement? Does your audience react better to photos or text posts? Should you keep a formal tone or be more friendly and conversational? The answers to these questions are key to your Facebook success.
What’s it about?
The strongest characteristic of Twitter as a social network lies in its140-character tweet limit. The updates that are posted here are short and clear. While Twitter does offer visual content options, text-based posts are more dominant and often include links to external websites.
If you’re trying to reach a broad audience that’s receptive to marketing messages, Twitter might be the best bet for you. About39% of the people who took one recent survey indicated that they’d rather hear from companies on Twitter than on any other social platform, beating out Facebook.
Who’s on board?
Twitter currently boasts around 650 million users worldwide, and their updates amount to58 million new tweets per day. Twitter users are more likely to be active on their mobile device than on their PC, so think of it as a real “on the go” network.
Sounds good. How do I get started?
First you need to learn some Twitter jargon and conventions – Hashtags, Retweets, Mentions, Direct Messages. These are terms that will help you understand the engagement potential.
An important thing to take into account is that the average lifespan of a tweet is extremely short, so you need to be able to post quite frequently – without, of course, spamming your audience – to increase your business’ visibility.
One of the most valuable things that Twitter offers to business owners is the ability to search for keywords that are related to them and track people’s conversations. This gives you great insights into the way your audience interacts with similar businesses and allows you to improve the content of your tweets. Use a Twitter dashboard tool like HootSuite, TweetDeck or Commun.it to set up tracking for relevant search queries and follow up on them on a daily basis.
What’s it about?
Google has been throwing all of its weight on Google Plus, the search giant’s social network, in an effort to compete with Facebook. While it’s been a rocky start, things now seem to be picking up on Google Plus so don’t underestimate this platform.
Since Google is running the game, gaining traction on their social network also impacts search results, and this is an incredible incentive to be active here.
Who’s on board?
Google Plus has almost 550 million active monthly users. Statistics show that the userbase here is predominantly male and that profession-wise, the biggest segments are students, tech-oriented professionals and creatives like bloggers and photographers.
Sounds good. How do I get started?
Like Facebook, Google Plus differentiates between individuals and companies. As a brand, you will be best represented with a Company Page. Google’s involvement here requires that you think of the content that you upload in terms of Search Engine Optimization. Your posts and profile description need to include rich texts with relevant keywords.
Communities are very strong on Google Plus, so a key strategy for you would be to find active communities that are related to your business and interact with them in a clever fashion. The idea is to always offer value to people and understand that participation in communities is mostly about giving. Hard selling and spamming simply don’t work on social media.
appeals to an older, well-educated and established audience. While it boasts an impressive number of users for a “niche” network (about 4 hours or less per week surfing the site.
Sounds good. How do I get started?
Your LinkedIn strategy depends mainly on whether you wish to promote yourself as a freelancer (in which case you should invest time in creating a powerful personal profile), or whether you want to market a business operation under a brand name (in which case you should also set up an official company page).
What’s it about?
A social network dedicated to the sharing and re-sharing of visual content, Pinterest is all about inspiration and ideas. From beautiful artworks, through stimulating recipes and all the way to DIY projects, Pinterest encourages users to appreciate aesthetics.
Many brands that have a strong visual appeal find Pinterest very useful for promoting their services and products. More than other social networks, Pinterest leads to spontaneous eCommerce shopping and is therefore of great value to online businesses.
Who’s on board?
Pinterest is an unusual network in the sense that from the70 million users it currently has, a great chunk is made of female users. In fact, recent studies show that about a third of the women in the US are currently Pinterest users!
Another interesting tidbit about Pinners is that they are three times more likely to be active on their mobile device than on a PC.
Sounds good. How do I get started?
Pinterest allows images to speak for themselves, so the power lies in high-quality and frequently updated “pin boards” (the Pinterest equivalent to themed photo albums). Put some effort into creating alluring visual content – photography, illustrations, graphic works – anything that can help you represent your brand in a striking manner.
What’s it about?
More than any other social network, Instagram has become synonymous with “generation app”. This mobile-based network allows smartphone users to share their photos instantly with their contacts. It’s a visual representation of your daily life, spiked by image filters that make it look more beautiful.
Brands that use Instagram often draw major engagement by posting original and creative images. Check out a few examples of companies who do an excellent job promoting themselves on Instagram.
Who’s on board?
Instagram now has150 million users,70% of whom use the app on a daily basis. It’s a predominantly young network, with over90% of users under the age of35 (some of whom can be extremely agitating).
With Instagram now being a Facebook-owned gem, visibility of Instagram content is significantly increasing, making it even more appealing to companies and brands.
Sounds good. How do I get started?
Make sure you can keep up a steady posting pace. Do you have enough interesting visual content to maintain an active Instagram feed? If not, it’s time to get creative and get some!
To get a sense of what the Instagram community is interested in, check out the list of most popular hashtags. Integrating hashtags in your posts is an important way to attract new followers, but you’d want to use them cleverly.
Social networking websites are becoming an indispensable part of our larger society, with many businesses using them as tools to enhance a better relational experience with their employees and customers.We cannot ignore social media importance and now it is not considered time wasting as well when it comes to business. Ease of sharing via social media platform help organizations to make ideas, news and conversation spread quickly. There is immediacy to social media that can help businesses spread their message quickly, cost effectively and efficiently.
At work there is no need to get patch up with social medias for personal use
