Social Media – do you need it?

In our previous article WHAT? Now I need a website AND a social media presence? we discussed the business benefits of a strong social media presence aligned to your business website.  Today, we will look at the key sites you should be using.

Linkedin Logo Image So let’s start with LinkedIn for your business and for your most important executives and salespeople.

LinkedIn is primarily a business network. You won’t find any photos f parties, or people’s kids or pets, and no travel photos. It’s all business!

Remarkably 25% of all adult internet users in the US use the site.  And 40% of its registered users visit LinkedIn daily.

Your company can have its own profile on LinkedIn…So think about what your company’s resume might look like if it were a person.

You can describe your business history, primary skills, greatest accomplishments as well as a posting recommendations from customers. I’d also recommend you post some industry information or news, and even a case study of an experience or two you had with your clients that were particularly successful for them.

If you have a sound and comprehensive LinkedIn profile for your company, you can get some incredible traffic to your website. And as we’ve discussed, one on your website, you have lots of things you do…especially having a prominent “Contact Us” mechanism. And then suddenly, you have new leads for your company.

Prospective customers and partners will also check out your personal profile on LinkedIn to make sure you have the credentials to handle their business, and then they’ll come back to your company listing to make sure its worthwhile to reach out.

On your personal profile, you can post your opinion on issues, suggestions on business matters or even technical information. Anything you think a prospective customer might be interested in.

For example, on either your personal profile, or your company’s profile, you can post about your best clients/case studies, your hardest jobs, your largest jobs, your most complex jobs, your company history;  show me photos of your equipment, your offices, your executives. Share videos of your work on customer sites, as well as links to their websites. Link to stories from your industry association’s newsletter or conferences and events.

Treat your company’s LinkedIn profile as what you would say about your company or industry if you could have someone sit and listen to you over a cup of coffee and always link back to your company website, so you can start the cycle of getting their interest on LinkedIn, then move them to your website for more in depth or dynamic information, and ask them to “Contact Us”…Now you have someone who is “ready to buy”.

Instagram Instagram Logo Image and YouTube Youtube Logo Image

The same approach and benefits apply for Instagram and YouTube, although with a different approach on the type of content you post.

It’s interesting that Instagram is one of the fastest growing platforms and permits you to post images and videos that show off your company’s projects, new products, your new headquarters, or anything that visually represents your core values and services.   Instagram tends to appeal to a younger audience as well, which is not a bad thing (!).

Post photos of jobs in development, before and after photos (everyone loves these), videos of new installments, or new product launches.  Short and sweet is the approach on Instagram, letting the image tell the story and build your brand trust. And, as I always say, everything you post will have a share button and a link back to your website.

YouTube

Did you know that YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google?  Me neither! But now I do,and that means something.

So how big is YouTube?

YouTube processes more than 3 billion searches a month. 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute. It’s bigger than Bing, Yahoo!, Ask and AOL combined!

YouTube can feature your company and products in a very visual way, from short 30 second videos to a longer series of interviews with customers, interviews with executives, sales presentations, or whatever you think would make for interesting video content.

Feature your company’s accomplishments, any charity efforts your company is associated with, partners you work with, etc.  You can post these videos to your LinkedIn company pages and to your company website as well!  And close every video with your company name, address, email, and really big and large: your website address!

So….what are the benefits of all this work?

Feeding the insatiable appetite people have for content, combined with well developed personal profiles and company profile pages on LinkedIn, all linking back to a dynamic website equipped to handle responses by capturing all these names  of potential or existing customers, you will quickly realize that those people you see out there glued to their phones, laptops, and tablets will become your next customer!