306 / COMMUNICATING EXTERNALLY
Communicating through
social media
Devise a strategy
Social media can be used in many
different ways—from increasing
awareness of your company’s brand,
increasing traffic to your website,
and forging new business contacts at
home and abroad, to boosting sales
or attracting customers to stores. So,
the first decision you should make is
to set the purpose of your social media
interaction. Be specific in your goals,
and list them in order of importance.
Next, carry out some research—
formal or informal—into the internet
habits of your customers or target
audience: who are they? Which social
media channels do they use? What do
they expect from these channels? You
will have far more success if you tune
in to the needs of your customers.
Social channels on the internet—notably Facebook, Twitter, Google
Plus, and LinkedIn—have transformed the way people do business. A
social media presence is no longer an option, but an essential—more
than 80 percent of people are influenced in their buying decisions
by a brand’s presence on social media. So how do you maximize the
impact of your social media output?
Focus on success
Always consider how your social
media activities will translate into
business growth—there is little point in
maintaining a costly presence on social
channels if it doesn’t affect the bottom
line. Think about how you can measure
the effectiveness of your activities.
Having a large number of followers on
Facebook or Twitter, for example, may
be impressive, but may be of little value
of adult users of social
networks follow at
least one brand
58%
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COMMUNICATING THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA / 307
Engaging with your audience
How you communicate through social
channels depends on your goals (see
above). However, you should always:
•
Post regularly: a media stream to
which you contribute sporadically
will soon dry up.
•
Post interesting comments: try to
encourage debate, comment, or
likes, rather than making passive
statements.
•
Vary contributors for differing
perspectives.
•
Always respond to posts from
users within a reasonable
time frame.
Three major uses of social media
ACTIVITIESREMEMBER TO
SELLING BUILDING
PROFILE
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
Posting information
and user reviews of
new products.
Announcing events
or sales.
Issuing vouchers or
discounts.
Balance the hard
sell with useful
content and user
interaction.
Keep your content
lively, current, and
varied. Just giving
links to other web
sites will not
encourage repeat
visits from others.
Set up a separate
account for this
purpose and
ensure that
your responses
are quick and
authoritative.
Providing useful
information or
resources for
users.
Becoming the
“go to“ place for
discussion of an
industry topic.
Engaging with
customer queries
and solving their
problems.
Measuring
customers’
sentiments toward
your business.
if it fails to translate into improved
business performance. Similarly,
building up many connections on
LinkedIn may be of little use if you fail
to leverage these connections to create
new business. Always consider how
you’ll gauge the value of the effort you
invest in social media.
Remember too what social media
is—social. Too many companies use it
as a one-way form of communication,
like a corporate website, and fail to
invite user comment or contribution.
The more dialogue you can build with
your customers, the more effective your
use of social channels will be.
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