Ok … message received … our businesses need to be on social media. We are set up on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, 4 Square, Pinterest etc etc etc. Next step, how do we do it?

Online research resulted in lots and lots of advice. Know why you are doing this strategy. Generate interesting information. Have a purpose for each post. Do it regularly. Blah Blah Blah and we still don’t really know what we are doing. So the question posed to my colleagues at the Albany Creek Business Contacts this morning was – what do you actually do on social media that works for your business?

Our resident cyberspace guru Matthew Fox (Brisbane Hosting and Web Design) shared there are three reasons why businesses should be using social media:

• Marketing and Brand Awareness
• Direct Sales
• Increase SEO

In relation to Marketing/Brand Awareness and Direct Sales, Tessa Stowe (Send Out Cards) summarised that social media is about building relationships so a starting point in relation to posts is to share who you are and what you are about. Tessa went on to share that in her experience she has found that each social media medium has its own audience type and, even if you are sharing the same information on each medium, you need to tailor your language and style for that medium, for example, communicating on Facebook is like at a barbeque where as Linkedin is like in the office.

Kirsty Newbery (Caring Cottage) added that she has had success with posts of anatomy pictures and explanation which are relevant to her services. Feedback to her is that readers have found the educational nature of the posts very positive.

Sandra Gilliman, commented that Streten Mason Lawyers (like Balanix Solutions), post up to date tips and information relevant to clients and prospective clients via blogs. Social media is used in these instances to notify interested people of the blogs and well as improve SEO (don’t worry, SEO will be discussed in more detail shortly). Sandra went on to say that posts are placed on the business page then staff share the information through personal pages to increase circulation. Sandra mentioned that if the person sharing the information was the author of the blog, then they tend to place a personal message to this effect in the post which friends tend to engage more with.

Andrew Gallagher (Lollyworld) echoed Kirsty’s and Sandra’s comments about posts (and pictures/videos) which are about your products or services that are of interest/educational/engaging to your audience. He went on to add that businesses also need to engage with comments made (that is, comment back) as you would do if talking with a group of people, face to face, when you interact with everyone contributing and responding to comments in the conversation.

OK, so, so far we know why we should be using social media, and generally, posts should be of interest to the audience in correct language and style suiting the medium. We should be posting relevant interesting information through posts, pictures, videos etc and engaging with others as we would in a face to face conversation. Now the SEO bit!

It was explained that social media can be used for SEO rather than social reasons. For the novice, SEO stands for Search engine optimization and is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or un-paid (“organic”) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search, news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.

In other words, SEO is about doing what you can to get your website as near to the top of the list in a Google or other search engine search without paying for it. The trick here with social media is to use links to your website in posts so Google and other search engines picks it up and indexes regularly. The more Google and other search engines index your page the higher it can rank. De Wet van der Nest (Express Air Con Cleaning, Kallangur) added that you should Google your website page all the time rather than use bookmark or quick link. This also helps with Google ranking.

This terrific information certainly has dumbed things down a bit more in relation to using social media for your business.

The last word belongs to Brad Davies (Conquest Pest & Termite Control) who commented that if this sort of thing is not your forte or you are just too time poor, outsource it to a professional who really knows what they are doing.

Happy social media-ing.

Albany Creek Business Contacts consists of local quality and reliable businesses who provide a wide range of services from home and residential services to B2B and commercial services. Our service areas cover primarily Albany Creek, Eatons Hill, Brendale, Aspley, Warner, Chermside, Strathpine, North Lakes. However many members will cover greater areas.

Albany Creek Business Contacts meet fortnightly on a Wednesday morning for a 7am breakfast and networking meeting.

Balanix Solutions – Accountant, Business Advisor, Bookkeeping.

Situated in Strathpine on Brisbane North, we partner with our clients to assist them in their accounting, business management and bookkeeping needs. Our clients vary in industries from professional services (such as law, vet and dentist) to the trades (mechanic, bricklaying, plasterer etc), hospitality and retail. Are clients are located in the Pine Rivers area (including Brendale, Lawnton, Albany Creek and Eatons Hill) through to Kallangur, Petrie, North Lakes and Caboolture, as well as Brisbane South, the Gold Coast and various other parts of Queensland.

Call us today … we can help (07 3264 4783)