Social Media is key to growing your audience today. If you are like most businesses, you have jumped on the Social Media train, but like most small business you are struggling to find it useful.
To build a committed audience and ultimately grow your business network, the first step is to create a trusted relationship with your customers.
Join a Twitter Conversation
One of the best tools in social media is whats known as “tweet chats”. These “tweet chats” are a great if you want to develop person-to-person networking.
The best thing about this is while almost everyone starts the conversation as strangers, over time the participants begin to develop relationships that extend beyond the regularly scheduled chat.
Have your business start a hashtag that everyone can use to participate in the chat. For example, if your business name is Sally’s Salon and you are doing a contest, a simple hashtag for everyone to use would be #SallysSalonContest. Doing this will allow customers to ask questions that you can answer; remember your replies will be limited to 140 characters.
Participate in LinkedIn Groups
LinkedIn groups allow opportunities for networking with people who fit your prospect profile to open up.
To find groups you are interested in, hover on Interests in the header navigation and click Groups. Then, click on More>> in the Groups You May Like box. Use keywords specific to your industry to search for groups. You can filter the search results by Relationships, Categories and Languages.
Check out the groups and join one or two that are made up of people who might be interested in what you offer. However, remember this isn’t the place to sell. Focus on being helpful and providing service to other members, answer questions and give advice.
Share Insight From an Event
When your business attends conferences, share your highlights and notes with people who can’t attend. By doing so, you’ll attract people who are interested in your industry.
If you are sharing notes via Twitter, do it in real time with your followers. Almost every conference or event you business attends will have an official hashtag; be sure to use this in all of your live tweets.
For more helpful tips and social media information, click here.