Social media is used increasingly by everyone. Social media can be used effectively by your business. Before deciding which social media platforms to use, you need to decide what business objectives you want social media to help meet, and who will be responsible for managing and administering your social media resources.
There are a number of different ways social media can be used. They include:
- Promote products and services
- Get feedback from customers
- Provide thought leadership in your industry
- Monitor your firm’s reputation
Why should you get involved? One good reason is that your competitors are starting to use it.
Who should be involved? A senior company executive or advisor needs to be responsible for it. Responsibilities include developing the social media plan, creating the organizational structure to support it and assigning responsibility to manage and maintain it.
Where should you start? Before you start, decide what objective you want to accomplish. It is prudent to identify one objective initially. As you become comfortable with the results of this initial effort, you can experiment with different approaches to gain confidence and experience. When you start seeing results from the initial effort, you can formulate a new objective.
How should you start? You can either have a staff member assigned or you can outsource part or all of the functions to others. It is a function of time and money.Discuss potential uses of social media with key members of your team.This would include both employees and other key advisors to your business.
One of the keys to using social media successfully is to provide consistent, timely communication between you and your customers. You should then create a social media plan. The plan will define how you want to accomplish your objective. It should also identify the:
- Administrative policies and procedures
- Management responsibilities
- Metrics used to evaluate effectiveness
- Social media platform(s) used
- Tools used to monitor metrics
- Frequency of information dissemination
- People who will provide content
- Company executives who will monitor it.
- Staff members designated to respond to posted comments
Once you understand what is involved, you can make intelligent decisions about implementing it cost effectively.
If you are unsure where and how social media can be used in your business, Berger Business Advisors can help. To discuss your objectives and how social media can impact your business, contact us.
