I admit that I stumbled upon value of social media for businesses quite by accident. I attended a seminar about email marketing and naturally the interconnectedness of email marketing to social media came up. Sure, I had a personal Facebook page and Twitter account, and (I'm ashamed to admit) a neglected LinkedIn account, but I had yet to unlock the potential that social media offered from a business perspective.
Upon sharing my excitement with my boss, I was quickly designated the company's "social media" expert. However, when I actually sat down to start, I was stumped. What should I tweet and post about? It seemed to me that the purpose of using social media was to get people to use our services, but how many times could I talk about how great the company was before it became annoying and ineffective?
Those first few weeks were rough. We got virtually no traction our profiles and I couldn't figure out why. About that time I attended a marketing seminar to better understand what I was doing wrong. The answer was as plain as the nose on my face. "It's relationship building, stupid!"
Turns out I had been going at it all wrong. I had entered the social media scene in order to sell something. When in reality I should have been spending time creating and nurturing online relationships and establishing the company as the expert in its respective field. From that day forward the purpose of social media changed. I stopped posting so many testimonials and started posting links to articles containing expert information. I linked our newsletter to our social media outlets, I sent "how-to's" and surveys. And most importantly I dedicated the necessary time to engaging other businesses through direct messaging, following, re-tweeting and "liking."
Remember, social media is electronic word of mouth. Take the time to establish yourself as the expert and to develop online relationships.
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