Start With A Small Business Social Media Plan
When planning to build any kind of online presence as a small business, it is important to start with a good foundation.
A good online foundation contains the following four main components: a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a LinkedIn profile.
A website can and should begin with a simple informational site consisting of five main pages.
People should be able to find the business on the web, learn about the company, contact someone for customer service, learn about the products available, services or capabilities, and find the business in the "real" world.
A Facebook page offers many of the same features as a basic website.
Visitors should be able to find the company fan page, contact someone for assistance, interact with the business, and share the page with friends.
Luckily, all of this is built into Facebook.
LinkedIn is commonly described as the primary social media place for business.
A company should create a personal profile with information about the business.
Each employee should reference the company in their personal profile and appear as an extension of the business.
Twitter has a wealth of information and is really very simple.
Companies use Twitter to "tweet" small updates and to search for specific mentions of the business firm, competition, partners, and anything related to the company's market.
Don't let Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter become a full-time job.
Set a specific time and look quickly through the Facebook and LinkedIn Profiles.
Create a few searches and lists to review related Twitter activity.
While looking at each of the services, respond to any serious inquiries, share a personal comment, and share something useful.
Ok, now here's the secret -- Connect all of these items together! Over time, start to write a blog on the website.
When posting a blog entry, "push" it to the Facebook page.
The Facebook page should then automatically "push" to the Twitter page.
Connect Twitter and the blog to the LinkedIn account.
With these "connections," a single blog entry is easily "pushed" to the three social media profiles.
This might sound like a lot of work, but it really isn't.
The setup is not difficult and can be done in just a few hours (assuming the company information is available).
After everything is completely setup, it doesn't take much time at all to write a short (but high quality) blog entry, quickly check the social profiles, and build a solid online presence.
A good online foundation contains the following four main components: a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a LinkedIn profile.
A website can and should begin with a simple informational site consisting of five main pages.
People should be able to find the business on the web, learn about the company, contact someone for customer service, learn about the products available, services or capabilities, and find the business in the "real" world.
A Facebook page offers many of the same features as a basic website.
Visitors should be able to find the company fan page, contact someone for assistance, interact with the business, and share the page with friends.
Luckily, all of this is built into Facebook.
LinkedIn is commonly described as the primary social media place for business.
A company should create a personal profile with information about the business.
Each employee should reference the company in their personal profile and appear as an extension of the business.
Twitter has a wealth of information and is really very simple.
Companies use Twitter to "tweet" small updates and to search for specific mentions of the business firm, competition, partners, and anything related to the company's market.
Don't let Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter become a full-time job.
Set a specific time and look quickly through the Facebook and LinkedIn Profiles.
Create a few searches and lists to review related Twitter activity.
While looking at each of the services, respond to any serious inquiries, share a personal comment, and share something useful.
Ok, now here's the secret -- Connect all of these items together! Over time, start to write a blog on the website.
When posting a blog entry, "push" it to the Facebook page.
The Facebook page should then automatically "push" to the Twitter page.
Connect Twitter and the blog to the LinkedIn account.
With these "connections," a single blog entry is easily "pushed" to the three social media profiles.
This might sound like a lot of work, but it really isn't.
The setup is not difficult and can be done in just a few hours (assuming the company information is available).
After everything is completely setup, it doesn't take much time at all to write a short (but high quality) blog entry, quickly check the social profiles, and build a solid online presence.
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