Stay In The Social Media Loop

Friday 22 March, 2013

by Catriona Pollard

Do you feel out of the loop when your employees discuss social media? Then now is the perfect time for you to get in touch with social media and actively participate in conversations about it in your business. It's vitally important for company leaders to understand social media, in order to manage it effectively and leverage the many business opportunities it presents. You don't necessarily need to be the posting and commenting on social media, but by understanding how it works you can make better decisions on how to use it in your business.

Social media is a great communication tool and the benefits for businesses will only continue to grow. Many businesses are successfully using social media to engage with their target audiences and build their brand.
If your business doesn't have a presence on social media you are missing out on the opportunity to communicate directly to your target audience. Social media enables you to build a relationship with your customers to increase brand loyalty, trust in the company and attract new customers.
Many of your customers are already using social media and are probably discussing your business. Having a presence on social media allows you to monitor the conversations about your business and ensure your messages are delivered correctly. You can also gain valuable customer feedback to continue to grow and improve.
 Social media also allows you to build the business' profile extending its reach and driving traffic to your website.
Here are some tips on why you need to understand social media.

• Ensure your messages are correct
  
  If your employees are posting content on behalf of the business, you need to ensure they are sending out the correct messages. If your business is misrepresented, then you could lose the trust or support of your customers, clients and stakeholders, and in extreme cases, result in a litigious situation.
  
  Your business should create a style guide which informs employees of what to post, how to respond to comments and how to represent the business correctly. In order to approve this document and monitor posts, you need to know how social media works and how each platform is different. Messages can then be tailored to suit each platform and audience.
  
• Make an informed decision
  
  As the head of the company, you make the final decisions on any new initiatives the business implements. Too often CEOs are quick to say no to social media without really understanding how it works or its benefits.
  
  To make an informed decision, you need to understand each social media platform and how they can be measured. Employees may come to you with a social media proposal and start talking about social media measurement tools, retweets, pins, sentiment and more. By learning what these terms mean you can really analyse their proposal and ask informed questions.
  
• Ensure it's working effectively
  
  Social media doesn't always have a direct link to sales, which means it can be difficult to measure. There are many social media monitoring tools that can be used, but if you don't understand the results it will be useless. To analyse the data correctly you will need knowledge of each social media platform and the terms used in social media measurement.
  
  As social media is not measured by profits, you should gain an understanding of the influence and scale of other forms of measurement.
  
•  In times of social media crisis
  
  If your employees come to you with a social media crisis you need to know how to handle it. For example, if a customer posts a negative comment on your business' Facebook page and receives support from other users it could turn into a PR crisis. You need to know how to respond appropriately to resolve the issue in the quickest and best way possible. Perhaps you will need to speak to the media about the issue and so having a good understanding of the social media platform is a must.

The best way to understand social media is by joining a platform and using it. When you understand social media, you can manage the process to ensure it is working correctly and benefiting your business.
So why not do some research into social media, or start using it now, before your employees present you with a social media proposal.

Author Credits

Catriona Pollard is director of CP Communications which provides specialist media, traditional and online PR strategies that achieve positive media coverage, increased brand awareness and improved sales results. Phone: (02) 9922 1063, Email: cp@cpcommunications.com.au, Website: www.cpcommunications.com.au, Blog: www.PublicRelationsSydney.com.au 

 

 

 

 

Source:ceoonline.com