On the surface, it seems like a no-brainer. Your friends all know you have a business anyway, so why not cross that threshold and turn your time-sucking social media habit into a profitable operation? There are several great reasons to consider leveraging Social Media for your business.
Mismanaged or inconsistent social media can showcase your entire company like it’s also mismanaged and inconsistent.
We’ve all seen it. The company Facebook page for a local repair service that is going to change the world. The elaborate setup. The new company portrait, taken by the company vehicle with the company logo. The friend blitz/page invitation. The sharing and the liking. The inside joke posts about the boss getting older, or fatter, or balder. The All-Caps demands for more liking and sharing. The political stances. The kitty cat memes. The warm-hearted holiday post. And finally, the 2-year gap since your last post of any kind. Without consistency across the board, your company’s reputation can suffer. And the very thing (social media) that was intended to enhance your company’s rep can actually damage it.
By this point, you may have completely forgotten about your company’s Facebook page, but the internet most likely hasn’t. You may never notice it, but unless you’ve officially removed or hidden your Social Media pages, they will remain indexed by search engines. Can you guess what a prospective customer is going to run across when they search for your company name online? That’s right! Your beautiful, world-changing, neglected, sad, company Facebook page. Even if you run a tight ship in the real world, a neglected social media page will signal to potential customers that they will also be neglected by your company over time. And sadly, that’s all the convincing some folks need to do business elsewhere.
Which social media outlet is the best for my business? It would be easy for the Fame Team to make a ranking list of the social media outlets we felt were best suited for boosting local business. But a singular list would not apply evenly to every different kind of company. There are certain intrinsic virtues to each individual platform, and we’re sure that someone, somewhere, has successfully used each major social media outlet to enhance their business. The actual answer to this question will vary greatly from business to business, from demographic to demographic, and from geographical location to geographical location.
In some places, and for some businesses, Facebook is king. For other business types, a review community, like Angie’s List or Yelp, offers the highest perceived value. An E-Commerce or internet sales company might get more mileage out of Pinterest, Etsy, or a similar platform. Each business should be willing to perform some trial-and-error, and see what individual platform, or perhaps what combination of social media platforms, would work to enhance their business the most.