Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. The Internet is full of social options to reach out and promote your business in addition to your Web page and your blog. But you have to use them wisely and carefully. Facebook is a good place to have not only a page, but also a site to collect fans. When you post info, all your fans get the post. LinkedIn is a site for business people to contact each other for business opportunities. Twitter can get a quick (remember, only 140 characters) message out to your database.
One important thing to keep in mind is that your personal accounts and your business accounts are not the same account. So, if you want to say you love going to Starbucks, do it on your personal account. Your business contacts don’t care.
Here are three guidelines for your business account:
1. Make sure what you post relates to your brand image. A lot of people post nonsense like the Starbucks comment and then expect to get a prospect. This won’t work. Stick to business. Tell the site what’s new with the business or if you have a public image, where you’ll be for a meet and greet.
2. Is your post inspiring or tiring? Sometimes if you run across something that gives you a lift, you can share it with your media friends as long as it pertains to business. It’s not about a new way to fold towels unless it gives you more time for your business. Of course, if you really do find a better way to do something, by all means, shout it out.
3. Are you taking your conversations offline to get to really know, like and trust your social media friends? Make sure your Internet contacts truly do have common interests as you. The Internet, even the social media pages, is anarchy, and you have to be on the lookout so that your business isn’t dragged down by someone who does not wish you well.
Used properly, social media can be used to as a tool to really reaching out and touching someone.
Lucinda Cross is a speaker and author and founder of Corporate Mom Dropouts, blog, radio show and book. For several years, she has made it her life’s mission to uplift, inspire and change people’s lives. She likes to call herself a catalyst for motivation, passion and high energy and has worked with small business owners supporting them to work on their business and not in their business, and women who were interested in learning how to work from home and take charge and create the life they love.
Lucinda has created a highly successful marketing implementation company for small business owners.