Everyone wants your attention. Your employees want it. Sales people certainly want it. Customers want it, and no matter what you do, you can’t add hours to your day. And yet, I’m going to tell you another thing you need to be doing.
You need to be social networking, and I don’t mean telling everyone on Facebook that you’re tired of your favorite sports team losing (I live in Buffalo, and that’s what we complain about, not the snow like you thought). No, you need to be social networking about your business.
Figure Out Your Target Market
Maybe you don’t have a dedicated marketing department at your beck and call. Maybe you’re not even sure who your target market is. Think about your favorite clients and whom you enjoy working with the best. That is the market you desire. My personal favorites are 45 to 65-plus year olds since they still respect the work that goes behind the scenes (See my “The Human Machine” blog post). If you think social media is just for kids, you’re wrong. According to Search Engine Journal, 60 percent of 50-60 year olds are active on social media and 43 percent of people 65 years and older are using it. This is where your clients are hanging out; you want to be there too.
Create Your Alter Ego
If your business were a person, what personality would he/she have? Serious? Informative? Funny? This is the format of which you should base your platform. Forty-seven percent of Americans say Facebook is the number-one influencer of their purchases (Search Engine Journal), and, yet, if you keep trying to sell something on any of these sites you won’t gain any new followers. If you’re funny or serious or create a personality, you’ll grow your base before you know it.
Facebook is still the biggest player on the block with more than one billion users, and 23 percent of them logging in at least five times a day (admit it, you even look more than once a day). This is where people are getting their information. There was a time where Dad would come home to read the paper, and today by the time dinner comes around the paper is considered old news. Information moves at a much faster pace today, and you need to be part of it.
Need more convincing?
Twitter’s fastest growing demographic are 55-64 year olds and with more than 400 million tweets a day. You need to find a way to stand out and pull in followers.
Post to the site consistently. This seems pretty obvious, but if you don’t post, if you have nothing to say, no one will follow you. You can’t just create a page and wait until the magic fairy drops followers into your account. You need to have a personality (see above) and need to keep people interested. For the same reasons we hear the same radio commercials over and over again and see the same TV ads, we need to keep our message at the top of mind with our clients.
Post pictures of completed jobs and talk about them (make sure you have permission!). Post “did you know” information or great articles you’ve discovered. It all goes back to the heart of knowing what you want your company to be and then growing your theme from there.
The news tells us people are fleeing from some of these sites, but people (mostly Baby Boomers) are also just entering into the realm of social media, and chances are these people are the people whom you want to be your clients. Just as wanting your appearance (dress-code, truck design) to reflect your message when you walk in the door; just as wanting your showroom to reflect professionalism; your social media message has to be solid, fun and human.
By becoming a social media king (or queen) you will not only generate exposure for your company but you’ll increase traffic and provide insight to the amazing things that you and this industry have proved possible.
Heather L. Sidorowicz is the president of Southtown Audio Video in Hamburg, NY.
