There’s a lot of information readily available about social media and the benefits that it can bring for your business. Many channels are evolving on an almost weekly basis and with new platforms regularly popping while others fade into obscurity it can be difficult area for any business to navigate through.
Although social media should always be considered as part of an integrated PR campaign, it’s vital to understand your aims and objectives. In just the same way that we would never advocate sending the same press release blindly to hundreds of print publications, the same rules apply to social media:
- Know your audience
- Understand what they are looking for
- Provide relevant and engaging content
Business use of social media differs from personal posts. After all, do your followers really care what blogger x, working for company y had for breakfast, or what their plans are after work?
Similarly give consideration to your reader before posting and re-posting the same sales offer on the hour, every hour for a week.
Social media for businesses at its best is valuable information resource and in this way, with the added opportunity for individuals to respond and engage directly with your company.
It’s important remember that social media shouldn’t be considered as a substitute for other forms of PR and marketing activity, but it does offer many different ways of engaging with your business.
After all, do big brand businesses invest less in traditional advertising, simply because they have an active Twitter account? Are traditional public relations campaigns a thing of the past simply because a business has thousands of facebook followers?
Social media simply offers another way engaging with individuals and the key to making the most of opportunities available concerns the ability to interact and engage.
Be interesting, be informative, but perhaps most of all, understand what your followers are looking for. We always advocate quality over quantity. After all, social media is ultimately about being sociable!
Here’s a few tips to help your social media campaign to succeed:
- Treat your social media channels as you would with any communications strategy, think about what you would like to achieve and look for how this can be realised and plan ahead.
- Although social media is a fast-growing area of communications, remember it should complement rather than act as a substitute for other forms building brand awareness.
- Engage with your audience, rather than simply sell to them.
- Choose your platforms carefully. Simply having a presence on every social media channel available isn’t going to benefit your business unless they are actively updated and maintained
- Finally, understand your legal obligations. If you wouldn’t write something in a press release or say in public, then regardless of whether your writing for your business or for personal pleasure, there is no place for it on social media!
An active social media presence can help to attract traffic to your website and even assist with boosting your company’s rankings in search engines, but it should always be considered as part of a broader integrated communications strategy.
Cannon PR offers a comprehensive range of online and offline communications support. Our social media support packages are available from as little as £50 per month.
To find out how we can help your business, contact us today.