Social media is bigger than ever. You’ll probably hear Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Pinterest or LinkedIn if you stop the average person on the street and ask them which social media they use regularly. So why aren’t you using more than one or two to promote your business? If you can’t afford to take the time to keep up with all of the biggest, then hire someone to help you.
Businesses that aren’t using social media to its best advantage are losing opportunities. If you aren’t using it at all, then you are really missing out. Here is a list of the top social media outlets and how many people they have subscribed to them through this month:
- Facebook: 1.1 billion users
- Twitter: 500 million users
- YouTube: 1 billion users (with 4 billion views per day)
- Pinterest: 48.7 million users
- Tumbler: 170 million users
- LinkedIn: 200 million users
- Foursquare: 33 million users
Obviously, billions of users of just these social media sites mean that your business could be getting “seen” by many more people than they could by just having a storefront and a web page.
Working on multiple social media profiles takes some time from your “real” work each day. You will need to interact with people who follow, like or pin you. If you don’t interact, having the pages is pointless. Make the sites interesting and helpful. Give your customers helpful information, not just information on how to buy your products. Have fun contests or giveaways. Everyone who “likes” the post is in the drawing for that product. It’s a great way to get new followers and add to your customer list.
You can also use the negative from social media to your advantage. If someone says something negative on your business profile, instead of deleting the post and ignoring it, address it in a positive way. Acknowledge the complaint and do what you can fix it. That way when you have prospective customers searching for you, they will see that you deal with negative things in a positive way.
Social media can’t be ignored, unless you want to fail.
