Odds are your company has a regular slew of social media accounts. From Facebook to Twitter and of course, LinkedIn – your company is probably trying to “connect” with its “followers” in hopes of getting more “likes” and “shares.” For quite some time (in the ‘internet years’), social media has been seen as the Holy Grail for interacting with customers, building influence, and achieving viral success.
However, spend 5 minutes scrolling your newsfeed on Facebook and it’s easy to see that the majority of companies are clueless about how to actually leverage social media to their benefit.
Why?
Countless companies, ranging from small startups to Fortune 500 behemoths, think that liking, sharing, and retweeting is enough. Sometimes a company will share original content, but fail to engage and promote that piece of content. Furthermore, social media duties are often relegated to a single employee within the organization.
Strength in Numbers
If you manage your company’s social media and you find yourself struggling to gain a foothold in the social space look no further than your own employees.
Whether there are 5, 10, or 1,000 people at your company get them all on social media! As a professional, no longer can any of your employees get by without Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Have them follow your company’s pages, retweet and share your company’s content, and strike up a conversation on threads all across the social realm. This is free company advertising through your employees. Invite your employees to evangelize your products and services.
Those 15 minutes out of the workday that your employees are already spending on social media can be turned into valuable company promotion time. Teach your team to visit the company’s social networks daily, and to become more than just a follower, but a promoter.
There is strength in numbers when employees get involved. No longer is it one rogue person running company social media accounts. Now, all employees are engaged and contributing to your company’s social influence.
Engage, don’t enrage
Don’t be annoying. Social media is about engagement. Barraging followers with constant sales content and advertising is the wrong way to win over what can become some of your best customers.
Engage with potential customers, and they’ll like you more. Start groups and discussions on LinkedIn, run surveys on Facebook, and tweet short-and-sweet industry insights on Twitter.
Create social value by providing meaningful contributions. A good rule of thumb before posting or sharing anything on company social media accounts is to think, “Would I read this myself?” – If you are disinterested in what you’re posting, odds are your followers will quickly become unfollowers.
Stay Relevant
This should be self-explanatory. Be consistent. Post frequently, maybe not 100 times a day, but post when you actually have content to share. How do you find valuable and interesting content frequently? Create customer stories, testimonials, videos, and short text snippets to share on your social networks that are relevant to what’s happening in the social universe.
Social media doesn’t have to be a task, it can be second nature. Engaging with existing and potential clients online expands your influence and can garner the respect of some of your most sought-after customers.
Much success,
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