There is no doubt social networking has its place in today’s business marketing success. The amount of time you must spend is the question you need to consider. Of course it all hinges on exactly the type of business you are in and the benefits to be realized versus the time spent creating and maintaining a social presence.
Creating pages on the various social networks does add to your presence on line and in searches related to your products or services or even your location. You must assign how much importance should be placed in on line searches as they relate to your particular business. In the case of our business in which we offer multiple services from consulting to home inspections, the need for search recognition varies. The consulting side will rarely benefit from an on line search while the home inspections may benefit greatly. But what does this have to do with social networking?
Everything is linked in the modern electronic universe, including your social pages and on line searches for your type of business services or products. The various social pages offer the needy shopper and the casual browser a way to see your products and or services showcased. But first you have to get noticed and for that you have to show up. This is where you have to decide how much time you want to spend designing and updating your pages as well as how many different social networks you want to have pages on. Each of these will add to your presence and therefore you will show up more often.
Your best bet, as it has been for us, is to start big with a lot of social networking and then scale down. This way you have started your business presence strong in the search categories. Once your clientele builds you may too busy to constantly update all sites and therefore just do so when you can and on the sites where you are getting the most responses. After all, you can’t spend all day updating social sites and service your customers too!
Remember to tie all your social networking sites to your website. In many cases you may find a benefit in paying less for your website and using your social sites to showcase your products or services in more detail. However, you should always remember to make the content of all of your pages and sites engaging to your audience. The content needs to focus on your business or you as the owner and possible expert in your service field. Different sites can be focused on different aspects of your business as long as you make them easy to understand the content, navigate and most importantly highlight the contact information.
So, Yes, be social, but in a businesslike manner and not to the extent it costs you time with customers or clients or that needed down time to relax after counting all of your money!
Next time: Keep those contacts!