Twitter, Facebook & Social Networking for Business

sjr4x4 · #11 (**permalink**) 03-02-10, 04:55 PM

Hello Chardonay, welcome to the forums! Wot a great name, wanted to call my daughter that but the wife said no

Impressive stats, and your right its all about reach, but I wonder about the type of audience. For a business directory, we want to engage business owners, so after trialing facebook advertising, although pretty cheap, it didn't generate any results, which is proberly a reflection of the facebook audience.

I can see it working for other types of business.

Kevin.Wiles · #12 (**permalink**) 07-02-10, 05:13 PM

As far as paying for advertising goes on Facebook I don't rate it I tried it for a company who targets 18-30 yr olds the prime age for users on facebook and most of them just liked the thing we did get traffic but no sales.

I do thing all social networking helps your website as it helps increase the word of your website and will generate new clicks etc

I only really worry with Facebook, Ecademy, Twitter, Digg, Stumble, 4 Networking, UKBF and this forum.

Kerrmunications · #13 (**permalink**) 02-03-10, 07:50 PM

I've just been putting the finishing touches into a presentation I'm giving tomorrow on social media for business.

I will précis it for you (it's 45 minutes long!). I think the most important things to remember are:

Have a strategy and stick to it - make sure you know what you want to achieve (specifics are important), who you want to reach, where you want to talk to them, how you are going to measure the results
After you answer the above, it should be apparent which media to choose - the biggest or most appropriate for business, however, are - LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs and forums. But others like SlideShare, Flikr, Ning, Ping, Ecademy and Plaxo may be relevant.
Make sure your messages are consistent with other marketing
Listen, monitor, engage, talk, create and respond to conversations - don't just try to sell - follow the 7010 rule on Twitter:- 70% good info and links, 20% retweets, 10% self-promotion
Create a linked strategy - write a blog post, tweet about it, link to it on your FB page, update your LinkedIn status about it, etc.
Don't expect it to result in immediate sales - guide your followers/connections through a four-step sales process: like me, know me, trust me, (and maybe, one day) pay me
Don't forget to measure the results and feed back the info into your strategy/objectives, reassessing them where necessary

OK, so we're done with the theory. What about in practice?

For me:

I've done some FB advertising - lots of clicks (and therefore payments to FB) - but no enquiries yet;

I tweet as much as I can, but I've found it hard to have enough to use this media properly;

I've found LinkedIn to be great - lots of contacts, a couple of expressions of interest from out of the blue, even a few meetings with prospects - but no actual business as yet;

Forums - my favourite - I enjoy the interaction and helping people out with advice. The investment of my time has paid me back with a fair few pieces of work so far.

Kip FX Design · #14 (**permalink**) 02-03-10, 07:54 PM

I will be biased here, but a good twitter background will engage more followers, it shows a seriousness and commitment that you will still be there in a week and not forget all about it! If you are doing a presentation on it, Twitter backgrounds are essential for twitter! Kip FX Design - Twitter Background Tutorial | Kip FX Design is a background tutorial, but also tells you how and why you should use one.

If you get many people wanting one, I am sure we could come to some arrangement!

!

Kerrmunications · #15 (**permalink**) 02-03-10, 09:18 PM

I couldn't agree with you more about the Twitter background. My presentation does include that piece of advice (there's a detailed bit on each of the main social media for business and how best to use each of them).

sjr4x4 · #16 (**permalink**) 02-03-10, 09:39 PM

Great post Claire, some good points.

Had exactly the same with FB advertising, bucket loads of clicks, but no conversions. Only good news it's pretty low cost so not an expensive experiment, maybe its works for some. Love linked in, but more from a nosy see where everyone is now kind of way. I don't think its a great business tool for my kind of business.

Am definately a twitter convert since I started this thread, bit of steering from Kip helped! But will confess to being lazy/not enough time and letting the forum auto tweet for me. I think its a fine line but doesn't seem to scare too many people away, and seems to draw fresh peeps to the forum.

But still early days!

Good luck with the presentation, hope it goes well. Supposed to be doing one myself on SEO in the next couple of weeks, not a fan of public speaking, fluff my lines and go bright red

Kerrmunications · #17 (**permalink**) 06-03-10, 08:26 AM

Steve - what's your Twitter name?

I'm @ClaireKerr - need to add it to my signature.

sjr4x4 · #18 (**permalink**) 08-03-10, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerrmunications

Steve - what's your Twitter name?

I'm @ClaireKerr - need to add it to my signature.

Steve Richardson (MyLocalForums) on Twitter

Kerrmunications · #19 (**permalink**) 08-03-10, 05:43 PM

Derr - I already knew that - I'm already following you!

sjr4x4 · #20 (**permalink**) 08-03-10, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kerrmunications

Derr - I already knew that - I'm already following you!

c'mon its Monday

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