Social Media Consultant London

Make my website cool! Make my website community driven with a forum! Make my website social! Websites seem to go through shifts and people tend to jump on the latest trend, sometimes without thinking through what is right for their users.

Is a social media a fad? No. It’s huge. Some businesses rely on it for success. It now even a search engine optimisation factor. Is social media right for every business...? I’ve not come up against a business where I’d say outright no, however, it really needs to be thought through. Don’t ‘do’ social media because you’ve been told to, think how can it be made useful or engaging for your users. If it still feels forced, that’s where you might want to get in a social media consultant.

Social media in consumer markets tends to be easier than business to business markets because you’re dealing with higher volumes of people and they may be willing to embrace your brand ‘outside of work’. That said, social media is still very possible in B2B markets and lots of B2B organisations have achieved success in social media.

Another misconception I seem to come across. Social media is just that, ‘social’, it’s not about broadcasting alerts to your audience, you need to start a conversation, you need to show your audience that your brand has a personality. This should be considered when you choose who will be your designated ‘social media updater’.

For me, the key social media websites that I choose for employers and clients because of their mainstream appeal are:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn

If you understand your business, it’s easy to decide which channels to go with. As a social media consultant, I tend to advise the client on tools and best practice, and ideas for how to tackle updates. I am also big on site integration, something still missed by a lot of businesses who have not connected their social media efforts with their website. In my opinion, this is the single biggest success factor for raising the visibility of your social media presence amongst your audience.

A key success factor for social media is that you need to generate content that is relevant to your business, of interest to your readers, and regularly updated so you never run out of steam. That all seems obvious and makes sense. In practice though, it would be worth putting together a short plan that looks at each of these areas.

Here are a couple of examples where I have implemented social media plans. Both take a very different approach to social media, however both in their own way are very successful:

Emily-Rose Professional Make-up Artist on Twitter
Emily-Rose Professional Make-up Artist on Facebook
View London on Twitter
View London on Facebook

Here are some free tips for establishing your social media presence:

1. Unless your business is relevant to your friends, don't invite all your friends and expect it to take off from that. When it comes to your followers, you need to think quality, not quantity. Speaking to real customers who follow you is far more valuable and rewarding than friends who are not interested in your brand and may even get annoyed with your irrelevant updates. Think 'social', think of attracting people that are likely to strike up a conversation or like your updates.

2. Keep your feed alive! Update at least three times a week and, depending on your customer base, you may want to move it up to several times a day. You could set-up an auto-prompt calendar to remind you to post, potentially set to peak times of day. A dead feed is a big fail. Using social media tools such as Tweetdeck to schedule tweets can save you time.

3. Never post too often or in quick succession. Too many posts in quick succession will present your followers with a wall of your updates and they may get annoyed and unsubscribe. They want to hear from other people too.

4. Social media is about the two-way conversation and it’s not all about you. Listening is as important and talking. Listen to what others have to say and engage them.

5. Promote your social media channels where your customers are. It sounds obvious, but adding social media links to your website could be your single critical successful factor.

If you would like me to review your social media presence efforts, drop me an email matt@mustardmatt.com