You may look at Facebook and Twitter, then look at your online business and think; what's the connection? No doubt you will have heard that social media can be beneficial to your business, but you may not be 100% sure how to go about reaping those benefits. 

 

There are a number of different ways that social media can be an effective tool for your business. The biggest and best thing that social media can do for you is to raise awareness about business. You should set up a Facebook page and a Twitter account for your business and then set about losing all of those preconceived ideas about Facebook being a place to put your holiday photographs and Twitter being a place to let people know that you are in the kitchen making a cup of tea. Who cares?

 

Well that is kind of the point, what do people care about, and want to know about? If they choose to follow your business because they're interested in what you sell or what you do, they're going to want to know about new products that you have, special offers that you are running, if you are going to appear at a specific trade fair or are looking to recruit new staff. If there is some important industry news that pertains to your products, they might want to know about that. They might want to see photographs of new products or they might want an easy way to let their friends know about what you do, which is the aim of the game with social media.

 

Once you have mastered the art of sending useful information to a group of interested customer and potential customers, the hope is that the network of people who know about your business will start to expand through the social media network. Friends of friends of friends will see updates about your business on someones page and become interested as well. You might end up starting a dialogue on Twitter that brings people to your site to find out what all of the fuss is about.

 

Another key factor in social media is blogging. Ideally you should have a blog on your own website where you can write about anything and everything pertaining to your business and your industry. Think outside of the box; write about things which your audience would be interested in outside of the products that you sell. The blog shouldn't really be a place where you whole-heartedly plug your products. Sales should come as a result of the right kind of audience finding your website and seeing that you really know what you're taking about. 

 

Social media is about broadening the horizons of your business by increasing awareness and building interest. If people don't know you exist then there is no point in being online. Let people know that you are there, let them know what you have to offer, and let them know that they can trust you to know more about your industry than anyone else out there.