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Business

Should We Use LinkedIn or Facebook to Promote our Business?

By Communications

Social media is pretty useful when it comes to getting the word out about your business. Too often, businesses try to spread themselves too thin, however, trying to manage a Facebook page, a LinkedIn page, a Twitter account, an Instagram account, a Pinterest profile, all on top of a website! It can be pretty overwhelming.

We really encourage organizations to take a look at what they can really invest time in keeping active. If it’s ONE TOOL, that’s fine. And if, truly, all they can manage is keeping content on a website fresh, then DO THAT, above all.

From there, it depends on the kind of business you have, and the audience you attract.

If your customer base is other business people, please focus your efforts on LinkedIn. You’re going to attract many more of the right audience members than you will with the shotgun approach of trying to pull in people from Facebook who are largely there for personal, not professional reasons.

If you have a consumer facing business, by all means, please keep your Facebook page active by being helpful to your audience. Be warm and interesting. Share information. Celebrate your community.

From there, the tools differ based on the kind of product or service you offer. But above all, stay focused on fewer tools and do a better job with the ones you use, first and foremost the platform your business owns: your website.

 

Three Ways Social Media Really CAN Help.

By Communications, Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Social Media

I just finished a really terrific interview with Ted Hissey, SVP and Director of Innovation, Consumer Planning and Global Marketing Services for Brown-Forman Co., marketer of brands such as Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort, Korbel, Chambord and Finlandia. Yum. Read it here.

In this interview Ted discusses how social media has really enhanced the way they both learn from and then re-target customers across a wide range of demographics. It’s really worth the read. I took three really good things from it that I think we can all agree are pretty excellent ways to justify and empower social media use in our own companies.

Social media brings some scale to word-of-mouth. If your brand is one that relies on recommendations and satisfied customers sharing your products with others, social tools can really help you empower those customers to do it. Hissey says “Word-of-mouth has always been critical in driving awareness of new and existing brands,” and social tools allow customers to reach many more influencers with a single post.

Most social media vehicles are very targetable. When marketing alcohol (like many other CPGs), marketers can encounter a broad range of customer demographics that respond to different marketing triggers. Social media platforms can allow messages to be targeted by location, age, interests, networks, job, anything. This makes each marketing effort that much more efficient.

You can’t be boring or typical. If you’re going to bother tapping into  a social network of consumers, you have to make your messages worth their effort.  As Hissey says, “if it’s just something boring that people can get anywhere, you’re wasting your time.” If you get someone’s attention and wow them, they will spread that word.

So what’s stopping you from realizing these benefits and addressing these opportunities?

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