If you are wondering if you should be bothering with the ‘social media thing’ for your business – the answer is yes. Read on for why…

Social media gives your business:

• Free marketing opportunities
• The chance to build trust and a relationship with your customers
• Direct traffic to your website
• High-quality SEO links to your website – helps you show up in search engine results
• Helps expand your audience
• And just so much more!

Your business should ABSOLUTELY be taking advantage of the marketing opportunities social platforms offer, and if you aren’t currently, here are the…

Top 3 Social Media Channels every business should be using…

1. Facebook – Great for businesses visibility, as well as providing a high-ranking SEO link to your website. You can target your posts to make sure the right people have a higher chance of seeing it, and is good for sharing media of all kinds from blogs to videos. Make sure everything is easy to see at a glance – most people spend around 20 mins at a time on FB so it’s a short window to grab their attention – and use subtitles in any videos you post for people who watch without sound. It has a broad demographic and is accessed daily and is still the most used social platform – but might be out-ranked by Instagram soon.

Facebook’s recent data shows 16 million Aussie Facebook users – that’s around 65.8% of the total Australian population.

2. Google+ and Google+ My Business – Obviously very Google-friendly, so creates a great link to your website, helps useful information about your business show up in search results, and allows customers to review you which increases your Google and credibility ranking. Your business page is also a great place to share authority content such as blogs and gain followers who might turn into customers. If you don’t have a Google+ my business page, do not delay!– and it’s simple and free so there is no good reason not to! 

3. LinkedIn – Now this is another high-quality link to your website but, more importantly, YOU also need to personally have a page.  Creating a page for yourself as the owner and face of your business is great for establishing credibility, proving your expertise by listing your credits and experience and networking with other professionals and clients. This is also a good place for posting blogs and authority content for your industry, so perfect for businesses which would struggle to use Instagram – like accountants. This has a much more ‘professional’ reputation – more formal than Facebook or Instagram.

If you are a small business and doing all your social stuff personally, you can stop here and get these three established before taking on any other accounts.

Social media is about quality, regular content, so if you can’t manage that – don’t take on any more. Do a few and do them well.

Another one you are probably thinking should be in the top 3 is Instagram. You are right that this is a great channel to be using, and it will probably take over Facebook in popularity in the not-to-distant future. But Instagram is image-based and should only be used by businesses who can produce high-quality and visually engaging images. Here’s the skinny

Instagram – Excellent for businesses who can offer beautiful visuals like travel and food, wedding industries or clothing companies. More for pleasure, people are looking for attention-grabbing images to like or bite-sized information like quotes. You can use images to send people to your blogs, but can’t use too much content in the actual post. Great for hashtags – making it easy for users of your product to tag and feature your business in their own posts. Use only high-quality, light and bright images. Over 50% of users are in the 18-29 year-old age bracket.

Climbing in popularity every month, if your business can be on Instagram, it should be on Instagram.

Remember, these platforms, the internet, and the way people engage with social media is always evolving, so keep testing the waters.

If you aren’t gaining any traction on Facebook, try heading to Instagram and just re-sharing images on your Facebook page to keep it active without adding to your workload.

Be sure to have a social media strategy in place before beginning. Establish your goals, amount of posts per week, content options etc. first, otherwise you will feel like you are in over your head very quickly.

Don’t be afraid to show people behind the scenes; a workplace shot, you having a Monday coffee before starting the week and so on. A big part of the whole ‘social media thing’ is about helping your audience feel connected to your brand.

So create a strategy, sign up, and start engaging with your audience – and watch the benefits start rolling in!

If you need some help with this, have a question or want us to manage your accounts for you, we are always happy to chat, so get in touch!