I have now been on Facebook since 2006, Twitter since 2008 and used both platforms as a way to develop my supply company that I used to own. Yes, I even had an extremely active MySpace account. In the last 3 years, I’ve also been active at Google + and keep my LinkedIn profile updated quarterly. I also am active on YouTube. So let’s better understand and grow your business with Social Media.

So to start what is the purpose? Why spending some time and effort with this? I think being an industry we’re definitely slow to adapt lots of the tools offered to us with social outlets. If you appear at a few of the major players inside our industry hardly any time and effort is put in social media. Social media does take plenty of time and it’s hard to essentially see the outcome quickly. Also, for many inside our industry, we’re more of an analog industry and are only now addressing the digital age. Pad Printers are an excellent example. Wonderful creative and talented people who stamp ink. They are able to make almost anything work, but ask a hardcore pad printer their ideas on the digital sublimation systems is often “that horrible trouble creating machines can take a flying leap… ” However in the proper environment with the proper market, sublimation could be a savior for a mat printers business. So back again to Social media…

So why the do we need to be on social media? 37 million people log onto to Facebook daily, and within the last 10 minutes, 40,250 Tweets have now been posted. What about Google +? Who do most most of us go to whenever we want to search for something on the internet? You will find 5,922,000,000 (Yes that is 5.9 Billion) searches on Google per DAY. Google holds a staggering 67.6 percent of the U.S. internet search engine market share, according to the latest internet search engine market share figures for April 2014, released by comScore. Being on G+ and speaing frankly about search terms that are important to your business as well as sharing links to your website on G+ correctly can help your search ranking. By improving your search ranking you will have an improved likelihood that someone goes to your website who’s interested in the merchandise and services you offer. And so the numbers are right. There is an audience and odds are nearly all of your customers are somewhere on social media waiting for you to talk with them.

One other basis for most of us could be the price. The purchase price cannot be beat… FREE! Being social is absolutely free and just does take time and effort. You will find things you can spend money related to social media that’ll make things only a little easier, but honestly people doing it right and spending enough time needed don’t have to cover something to advertise their business and find new customers. What’re your alternatives to reaching your customers? You can exhibit at a trade show or home show or another event. Plan on spending $5,000 to $10,000 to essentially do that right, though. You can do internet advertising with banners or Google AdWords. Plan on spending $1,000 to $2,000 per month to get the type of reach you may get with social media. You are able to put ads out on radio stations, TV as well as the area newspaper, but again all of them cost money, a commodity that many small businesses don’t have in abundance yet. Now using social media to improve the ROI (return on investment) for the above things is something you ought to be considering doing. Let’s say you may spend the $5,000 to produce at a nearby home show, but by luck of the draw result in a large part behind the area loud mouth realtor and nobody concerns see you. What about using social media to get people after dark realtor with images of one’s booth, jokes in regards to the loud mouth realtor or otherwise. Be yourself and help people come find you.

Another plus is it is not just one sided like a great many other marketing methods, you don’t need to be alone growing your business with it. Real quality interaction is driven by your customers and potential customers. Your job is to foster interaction between your company and products. This is not the elevator pitch where you’ve 30 seconds to market your goods and services, here is the time to share issues that interest your customer and build a connection that’ll turn them into lasting customers. Also, happy customer make the BEST salespeople so let them have a store to advocate for your brand insurance firms a dynamic social media plan.

Just what exactly else can be done? With social media, you can also put it to use as a tool for Customer Service. Yes, I am guilty of using my personal smm providers Twitter to vent my frustrations with poor service received by way of a company. I also play the role of conscious of shouting out good customer service by companies via social media. Many companies have figured it out and do an incredible job of helping, supporting and taking care of their customers with social media. Then there are the samples of those who have made massive blunders. A business that most of us inside our industry could have heard of made the Inc. Magazines top 10 social media fails in 2014 for their posting of a photo of the Challenger space shuttle exploding as a way of celebrating the 4th of July on the Tumblr page. They took a beating for it and the excuse was the social media manager came to be after the Challenger disaster and didn’t know it had been it was. On the flip side of the coin you’ve plenty of companies inside our industry and beyond that have it and do a great job of interacting using their customers and making social media an intrinsic part of their customer service plan. For example, I’m a loyal flyer on Southwest because of the help I received via their Twitter team when I was having some challenges traveling with my Autistic son. They sprang into action and made our journey a pleasing one and now I hardly fly anyone else. You can certainly do such things as monitor for comments about your company or product and then just ensure you are doing the proper thing on social media. You have to put yourself in their shoes and wear your “empathy” hat when interacting with folks on social media. Check your ego at the door!

Social media can also be used as a tool for research and product development. You’ll find a variety of information regarding your competitors, your customers and potential customers on social media. The key listed here is to just be the main conversation. You need to be an individual, not only a Twitter Handle or perhaps a Facebook Page. You have to offer something to get something. This means solving problems, giving tips and tricks, opening the curtain to who you’re as a person and company. Once you do this then you may get individuals to answer questions like “Do you prefer the black edge plaque with this specific design or the cherry edge plaque with an alternative design?” You may also find out if your competitor XYZ Company takes a long time to deliver a product, or has other weaknesses that you could be in a position to take advantage of by being truly a the main “group” on social media.

Whilst you will see to me being a part of social media could be a huge lift for your business and offers you a variety of tools to not only promote your business but to also understand and better service your customers. It is free to be a part of it just takes time. But if you believe about what your average day looks like, how often have you been just reading the most recent click bait article your friend posted on Facebook or considering the most recent Disney quote on Twitter and other time wasting activity. You will want to take those 15 minutes and devote it to being active on social media in ways that talks about your business. What about encouraging your employees to be active on social media because it pertains to your business. All it takes is for the term to begin spreading and you will dsicover results. They won’t be huge or immediate, but if the effort is put in and you’re daily being truly a the main conversation where your customers have reached on social media, you will wake up in 6 months to annually and notice it is working.