The Five “P’s” for Small Businesses Using Social Media

It is 2011 and many small business owners seem to be catching on. Social media is an efficient way to get valuable information to targeted publics, various clients, co-workers, the casual internet surfer, and to other small business owners. It is old news that creating and maintaining company social media accounts is a must and extremely advantageous. However, many small businesses that launch social media accounts are left questioning how exactly they should run and manage them. Below, is a list of simple things to think about before updating your social media account to keep your followers coming back to your page and feeds.

1. Point: Before posting, always ask yourself, “What is the point of this?” Often, social media users get into a routine and post material, information, or links that have no real purpose. People are following your social media for a reason. Target in on all of the reasons they could be following you and or your business and post accordingly. By doing so, your social media will have both a point and a purpose for your followers.

2. Plan: Have a plan for your social media. Schedule specific days and times you want to update your social media. Although social media tends to move along fast with current trends, it is appropriate to have your plans mapped out weekly, monthly and even quarterly. This does not mean that updating social media pages cannot be sporadic, but it will simply help keep you organized and consistent. You can plan out possible topics, subjects, links, and information educating your followers about your company or service, and even questions. Remember to not post too often or not enough.

3. Promotion: Never lose sight of what your company is promoting or you will lose followers, and more importantly, you will lose money. Whether you are promoting yourself, your product, your image, your service, or your value - always do it. If you want your social media to flourish then you need to promote why you have it and why people should be following you.

4. Properly maintain: Properly maintain your social media pages. This means update them on a consistent basis and monitor your followers, comments and questions. There are many tools available that will help you monitor your social media including, Social Mention and Facebook Insights. By monitoring your social media, you will better understand your social media and how each different social media platform should be used. For example, maybe followers on twitter engage in conversation more than followers on facebook. Why would this be important to know? The more you know and understand each social media platform, the more strategic and efficient you can be with every new feed and update.

5. Pictures: Always and consistently post pictures of your company, your employees, your facility, your services, your brand, and your logo. Many people are visual learners and are visually entertained. People use social media to browse pictures to see what is going on as supposed to read about what is going on. Posting pictures can help motivate your followers and engage them in conversation. It is also a good opportunity to brand your logo with the use of social media pictures. You want people to instantly know that your logo represents your company, product and service. Familiarize them with your logo on your social media.