Making the most of social media

Getting started in social media can seem like a very daunting task - I am often asked for advice or tips on how to make the best use of this valuable marketing tool. Following on from my post translating Twitter terms, here are a few pointers to help you make the best use of your social media activity to raise the profile of your business:

* Watch & listen before you “speak” - you don't have to join the conversation straight away.
* Integrate with your current website - using links to your current website is crucial if you want to use social media to drive sales - www.bit.ly and www.tinyurl.com are great space saving link tools.
* Competitions and offers - use social media to publicise special offers or run a competition for everyone that shares or retweets (RT) your post.
* Encourage and engage conversation – it doesn't cost anything to be helpful but users will remember you for it.
* Market research - social media is a great place to get up to date with your industry and find out what your competitors are up to.
* Select your tone of voice – keep it consistent with your brand. That means you can't use frequent foul language if you work for a very straight corporate company.
* Don’t be too “salesy” – communicate not broadcast. People hate to be sold to on Twitter as much as they hate it elsewhere.
* Time-saving tools – Use applications like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck etc. to save time and schedule your activity

Creating a social media personality

I have been lucky enough in the last week to deliver two workshops on social media and to share the potential of online networking with some interested individuals. The great thing about training and teaching is that I always find myself learning something at the same time as sharing my knowledge with others. One of the key comments raised in one workshop was the importance of integrating all aspects of social media activity into a streamlined strategy with blogging at the core. As I work my way through the maze of social networking opportunities I can really start to see the potential benefits of a holistic approach, although I am not yet tempted to go as far as "cheating" by using automatic updates as i still feel the individuality of the posts is crucial. One of the key values of social media is the importance of personality, which must show through in both individuals and brands. This also extends to adding an element of emotion to posts which makes them far more interesting to the reader.

Kirstie Allsopp @KirstieMAllsopp (posh presenter of Location, Location, Location) is an astute example of a social media-savvy celeb. One of her tweets which stayed in my mind when asked for a twitter tip was simply FFF - follow fun folk. She mixes home life and work life in her posts to achieve a healthy balance of personality and emotion with the serious promotion of her new tv series. When recently appointed as a celeb ambassador for the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, organisers credited the fact she made a personal call to express her keen interest in the role as a key factor in their choice. Again the real personality is shining through.

The challenge for small businesses is to identify and develop this type of appealing, almost human personality for their brand and share it with the world.

Social media madness

I've been neglecting my blogging recently in favour of exploring some of the other (many and varied) social media channels out there. The reason for this exploration is rooted in the social media workshop I am delivering next week for a Norfolk County Council programme to support tourism businesses (called Trading Up), but I've actually found myself secretly quite enjoying the journey. Social media (like all technology) is moving so fast and in many scenarios its still more a case of trial and error than following a set of tried and tested rules. This rings true with many aspects of marketing for small businesses too - I have lost count of the times I have been asked for a simple answer to the age old question: "What type of marketing will work for my business?" There is no one word answer I'm afraid.

I'm slowly being converted to the joys of Twitter despite a very sceptical start, and have already made 3 new Twitter friends of which i am justly proud! While its great to have all this amazing technology which makes life so global, its always good to be able to bring it back to a local level too, so i have concentrated my Twitter activity on tracking down other local Twitterers to engage with.

Linked In is also growing on me, and I now have kind recommendations from 6 associates. Time will tell if people actually read them!