If someone told you that 53% of sales will be influenced by your social media efforts due to consumers researching before buying, what would you do?
Thanks to social media, local businesses can now cost-effectively develop a brand presence and compete with the major players in the online-search landscape. But first you need to diagnose your social media efforts to see if they are naughty or nice?
Do you know who you are posting to? Many assume the people who read your post are random people but the truth is there most likely is a quantifiable demographics of your audience that you can get via your analytics. It would be “naughty” to talk about cars and beer to a bunch of moms but real “nice” to discuss balancing family and career.
The time you post. A very small detail in comparison to others but time has a huge impact if its overlooked. A “naughty” time to post is dependent on your audience. Lets say your targeting High School students then a naughty time would be during 8 to 3, when the students are in school and can’t check their Facebook, twitter ect. A “nice” time would be right after school when the first thing they want to do IS check their Facebook.
Is posting usable information or just an ad? Yes people want to know what you, your company or brand is up to but to only talk about yourself and not give anything informative is just “naughty”. “Nice” is giving out useful or entertaining info while still promoting you, your company or brand.
Amount of time you post. Inconsistent participation only gets you inconsistent results. Its “naughty” to post 5 times a day and then forget about it for a week and still expect your audience to check you out. A “nice” way to go about it is to give yourself a realistic social media schedule as well as to create/schedule as much advance content as possible.
Do you listen to your audience? This is the number one naughtiest thing you can do in social media. Just ask Proctor & Gamble when a mom blogger claimed that Dry Max diapers caused rash and blistering. This social media storm prompted lawsuits and safety inquiries. Their “nice” way of dealing with this social media crisis was to invite influential bloggers to P&G offices to speak with experts and see that their diapers had no connection to rashes.
No matter what your selling or promoting, know that Social Media is a powerful tool that can work for you or against. According to Forrester, 91% of business buyers read blogs, watching user generated video and participate in other social media so don’t end up on the naughty social media list.