If you are a SMEs even a Sole Trader, you will surely have asked yourself several times whether, for the size of your business, the Social Media actually provide you with a profit and whether the effort and the investment is really worth it.
To respond to this question, we need to take into account what is going on in our surrounding environment, and that is that more and more SMEs and Sole Traders are taking account of the importance of Social Media, despite the fact that the number of SMEs and Sole Traders that still do not use the Social Media is, in reality, a problem because they are not taking into account the opportunity that is right before their eyes.
And we must not fool ourselves, it is of upmost importance that we have clear objectives as to what we want to achieve or otherwise there is a high chance that we will just throw our money away.
So, what do we need to do?
First and foremost, a basic premise: we must be totally convinced of this new culture, we need to establish certain objectives and a strategy and we must be willing to innovate and to make errors without fear of getting it wrong, in order to clearly differentiate ourselves from our competitors.
The first thing that we need to do is correctly choose the channel/network, by reason that each Social Media has specific characteristics that differentiate them from the rest. For example, if what you are looking for is fast communication and furthermore a customer services channel, Twitter may be perfect; however, if you are looking for a form to explain how your products function or to better explain a service or a specific problem, it is better to create tutorials via YouTube; and likewise; Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. are very useful for close communication with customers and for displaying your products and services. In any event, it is better to choose a single network and keep it perfectly operational than to have several disorderly networks.
Secondly and more importantly, talk to your target audience, and above all, listen to them. What you do or say will remain forever, for better or worse, so do not talk to your actual and potential customers of today, but also your customers of tomorrow. Said dialogue helps your customers to identify themselves with your brand and bit by bit you’ll start to construct a community. The more you understand your target audience, the easier it will be for you to send effective messages. And accordingly, listening is the key, because only this way will we know what people say about our brand or our competitors, or what market trends may be detected, through what is known as collective intelligence, and almost free of charge, which provides us with fundamental information for improving our product/service.
Thirdly, it is also important to promote your company, and also your brand. Talk about the values of your company, your vision and mission, not as if you were a non-for profit entity, which would be an unforgivable contradiction, but rather from the principles of your company immersed within society, that you have strong values. However, and no less important, talk about your brand, emphasise your values, situate your products in the day to day life of your customers, you simply have to think in your products and your services, in your values and in the things that may be associated with them.
Finally, what we have already mentioned in a previous publication, it is necessary to be humble and acknowledge our limitations when managing these powerful tools, which means that it is necessary to either contract an expert, or subcontract the service (which doesn’t mean delegate and forget about it because at the end of the day it is our business that is at stake) or alternatively we can do it all ourselves, bit by bit, and accordingly we shall provide a few modest tips:
- Take note of what the “large players” do. If they act differently depending upon the network in question, we should follow suit. Merely to copy them? No. Because they understand that each network has its own philosophy, and accordingly it is necessary to act differently in relation to each network.
- Positioning is the key, these days, the search engines, when locating content, take into significant account the content generated in blogs and social networks, and accordingly said strategies on social networks shall help us a lot in relation to our visibility strategy and shall complement other SEO activities.
- Try to be different, be authentic. Experiment. Planning doesn’t mean that you can’t experiment, you don’t have to follow a strict script. The key is the visual aspects and in working with images, however not any photo or any content is necessarily appropriate, and it is necessary to use content that is attractive and that call your customers’ attention. An adequate image will attract the attention of our potential customers. The key is to add value, to give before asking.
After you have started, and after you have become familiarised with the network(s) that you have decided to use, you can then take another step forward, and plan a budget for digital advertising and try different options through trial and error, however you must always take into account the foregoing three tips.
If you do not obtain results, don’t worry, analyse the reasons, use tracking metrics and compare the results, what worked, at what time, on what day, that format, etc, and from said data, reach your own conclusions and be perseverant.
Take into account a maxim, that it doesn’t matter if you’re a multinational, a SME or simply a Sole Trader, if you don’t dialogue with your clients within this global economy 2.0, you’ll become extinguished like dinosaurs.