If you have an idea in your head, it's not really worth anything unless someone else hears it, the challenge you have is, to get this message into the minds of as many people as possible, today there are a thousand ways to do this, but where do you start? Teletext, Post-It-notes, PENS! What about branded pens? No, they're all stupid ideas.
I always advise clients to set up 3 basic things to ensure they've got a good Social Strategy foundation, this week I'll take you through some very basic ideas around the 3 main Social Media sites Facebook, Twitter and Linked In, I'm going to start with Facebook, and point out some very basic reasons why you need to be represented.
Facebook Vs The World
With 600 Million users and growing, the worldwide take-over of Facebook is kind of half way over, if you're not represented as a business then you really need to drag your sorry arse into 2011. Facebook isn't a fad, it's not just used by children and it's not just somewhere to waste time (although it's really good to look at people you don't really know from the offices' photos). It's fastest growing demographic is those twenty-five years and over and it's said that in 2011 over one-quarter of all internet page views were on Facebook.com. It's a face as massive as Lovejoy's, so why should you get on it?
Let's start with The Like button, this button essentially 'Likes' your site from another profile. Currently Facebook is registering over a BILLION Likes a day. If you don't know, then this is why the Like button is so powerful;
Once a user 'Likes' your page, the status 'Ben Brown Likes Peartree Productions' appears on BB's profile, now the average user has 140 Friends, so this message is potentially exposed to 140 people, if it catches the eye of say, Karen Brown (his nosey wife), she checks it's not pornography, and finds she likes it too, then you can see this message is exposed to another group of potential customers. Very basically, you can see how the exposure of a message is exponentially growing with each contact, and the potential is endless.
Another example I like is how I've used Facebook to find a good local mechanic to service my car. Previously when looking for a garage I've searched Google, obviously it's great for finding a list of thousands of mechanics, and with a little tweaking I can localise this search, and find one close to me. That's really helpful, but what I don't know, is which of these are any good. A fact proven to me when last time I took my car to a backstreet garage. When I returned the 'child' on reception hadn't booked the car in, so I waited an hour for the work to be done, and finally drove it away only to find it had a nail hammered into the tyre. Obviously I was too scared to take it back.
What Facebook offers by categorising it's Business Pages is a similar but much more effective version of Google and other listing services. Now I can search for a garage directly on Facebook, these results will be localised to me, and most importantly I can see which of these my friends have 'Liked' so I'll know straight away which ones are good. This directory searching of Facebook is becoming more and more commonplace as people are looking for personal recommendations and more reliable companies in these difficult economical times.
These very basic ideas give you a little insight into why presence on Facebook is pretty much essential, and something that's as important to building your Corporate web page, indeed it may be more important, and some companies are actually moving away from corporate sites and focussing their online strategy entirely towards their Facebook page.
Now excuse me someone I went to school with has just painted their front room and posted some pictures, and I really want to see if I can make out what DVD's they've got in the background.
QUICK TIP: Make sure you change your Facebook Profile URL, so you can have a nice neat address like Facebook.com/citizenstudios
Please get in touch to talk through your Social Media Strategy ask any questions and see what Citizen can do for you.
Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk
Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk
Or call 07738 175 614
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