[Business Post]
We’ve all heard at least one story about someone who posted a status, comment or photo on their Facebook page and it ended up costing them dearly with them losing friends, losing their jobs or worse. Some of these stories are easy to brush off as someone being careless or just not thinking of what they were doing, but there are many ways your social media posting can affect the success of your business in ways you may never have thought of. With many potential positive and negative effects, you can see what to do and what not to do on social media to benefit your business.
Positive Ways to Use Social Media
- Up to Date Posts: No matter what your business covers, you are sure to find current news or topics to engage your customer base. Be it fashion, pet care or holidays there are a number of ways to post about interesting topics whilst being relevant. Voucher code websites such as My Favourite Voucher Codes for example, will share the best vouchers currently on offer and post relevant money saving tips to cater for their audience.
- Commenting on Related Content: Social networking is all about just that, networking. Commenting is one of the content strategies for social media to engage users. One of the best ways to get your business noticed is to actively comment and engage with related pages, people and groups and let people know about what you have to offer.
- Friendly & Helpful Customer Care: In opposition to the negative, or lack of, customer interactions that can damage your business, providing fast, friendly and helpful customer care can do wonders for your company. From responding to questions and comments to starting a fun and friendly dialogue, you can build loyal customers with just a few clicks of a keyboard.
- Actively Engaging Posts: Not only should your social media posts be related to your business and scheduled well for your followers, but having posts which they can engage in can be very beneficial. Whether it’s a simple # or a competition or giveaway they can enter, getting your posts shared quickly and easily is something you should surely consider.
Negative Aspects to Social Media
- Bad Customer Service: Social media is a great way of connecting with your customers, however if you connect in a negative way – or not at all – that can have a great impact on your success as a business. If customers ask questions and don’t get a response.
- Your Personal Social Media Page: Many businesses now are keen to check up on employees’ public profiles as they want to ensure their business is not associated with anything untoward. Even if you own your own business and don’t post your personal profile on your business social media pages, there is a good chance people can find their way to your Facebook page just by your name, so any negative posts have the potential to put many customers off shopping with you.
- Who You Follow: Some businesses tend to follow thousands upon thousands of people to build up more of a social media presence for their business when they start out. However, if you keep following those people there is the potential that you can be following a lot of controversial characters or pages which don’t reflect your business’ values.
- Bad Posting Topics / Schedules: Both not posting regularly and posting too much can have negative consequences on your business. Try to have at least a few social media posts a week on each platform, and make your posts varied with content about current topics, news or developments in your business and fun, engaging posts.
With the recent rise of social media, it comes as no surprise that it can have such as impact on your business. From connecting with customers to ensuring your business has only positive connotations, social media marketing can ensure that with the continual development of e-commerce your business is never left behind.
