Tag: Social Media

Assuming you have a FaceBook account setup, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php to get started creating your own FaceBook page. It will walk you through all the steps necessary to set up a FaceBook page for your business and get started.

Tell All Your Friends

Once you’ve set up your page, be sure to tell all your friends about it so that they can come join. There’s certain features of FaceBook pages that only become available to you once you have at least 25 people that “Like” your business so it’s important to get that initial group quickly. FaceBook has a “Suggest to Friends” tool located on the top right section of your FaceBook page that you can use to send a message out to everyone you know.

Stats and Username

The two things you can do once you’ve got that initial group of 25 people is set your username as well as view stats for your page. Visit http://www.facebook.com/username/ to setup your FaceBook page’s username to something more appropriate, like we did with our YasTech page: http://www.facebook.com/YasTech is much easier to remember than facebook.com/pages/YasTech/2093203.

The other item you get access to is statistics, or insights as Facebook calls it. This allows you to see what’s working and what’s not by how many people are liking the items you post, sharing it or giving you some sort of interaction/feedback.

Go Forth and Facebook

There’s the tools. Now go set up your Facebook for your business. Be sure to leave a comment below with a link to your Facebook page so we can check it out.

If you’d like help getting your Facebook page setup, email or call us and we’d be happy to help you get setup.

First off – confession time. We missed posting yesterday. I’d blame the cold medication – but the reality is we got busy working on stuff for our awesome clients. But like we said in our initial series on blogging, it’s ok to occasional call in sick. Just make sure to get back in the routine of posting on your regular schedule as soon as possible.

You’ve Gotta Get On the FaceBook

FaceBook offers a lot of opportunity for businesses to get feedback, try out new ideas and keep their brand top of mind in their customers. Like all of these social sites the main thing to consider before you start setting up a page for your business is whether you have the time to manage it.

Time is of the Essence

It’s free to setup a FaceBook page for your business so the only cost is your time. But like Twitter, it can’t be something you just broadcast out to and never engage back in the conversation that may be happening on your page. While it might be slightly more professional than Twitter, you still have to try and switch out of stuffy business mode and talk how regular people talk. Be prepared to get feedback from customers on the things you post – good and bad. So it’s important to think about whether you have 10-20 minutes per week (initially) to post and respond.

Top of Mind for Your Brand

FaceBook is a great way to keep your business in the minds of potential customers. Whenever you post something to your FaceBook page, all the people that follow you get that update in their FaceBook live feed – the stream of information you see when you first log in to FaceBook.

Also, anytime someone “Likes” or comments on your FaceBook page, everyone who follows that person also sees your business’ name. It’s a great way to remind people about what you do, so long as you do it with tact and don’t abuse it. People can always un-like you or block your updates if they think you’re posting too much.

Feedback & Research

Facebook can also be used as a quick way to get feedback on a new idea or direction for your business. Perhaps you’re a retail store and considering stocking a new product that you haven’t had previously – ask the people on your FaceBook page for feedback and see what kind of response you get. Or maybe you’re thinking about changing the hours your store is open – ask and see what people think. Again, the key is to do it tactfully and not come off like you’re just using people like a marketing research firm might do it through telemarketing. For a small business that can’t afford to spend a ton of time and money on market research, this can be an invaluable tool for determining your company’s direction.

Next Steps

So that’s a few of the things to consider when setting up a FaceBook page. Tomorrow we’ll cover the basic steps to setting up your FaceBook page for your business. Be sure to like our FaceBook page to be notified of our new posts.

In yesterday’s post we were all negative on Twitter, trying to make sure you think about whether you really need a Twitter account for your business. Today we’ll talk about some of the benefits of using Twitter in your business, as well as some of the tools available for managing a Twitter account for your business.

Communicating With Your Clients

Twitter can be a great communication tool for getting feedback from your customers. Posting some news about your business, a new product or a special and if people think it’s great – you’ll hear it. Or if people don’t like the direction you’re headed, they’ll be sure to let you know as well. If you keep a running search on your business’ name on Twitter, you’ll be able to find out if people are talking (good or bad) about your company and at least be aware of the conversation. Then you can decide if you want to respond.

Learning From Others in Your Industry

Twitter is a great place to find others who work in the same industry as you, only in a different location. Or keep up on industry trends and changes by being involved in the conversation going on in your industry. Follow some key leaders within your industry and you’ll learn a ton about how they work and new practices you could apply to your business.

Promotion

Another way to use Twitter in a business is for promotion. Sales, specials, contests are all perfect for Twitter. But, and it’s a big but, you can’t be all promo, all the time. You have to figure out your audience, but it’s probably safe to assume that 25% – 50% of your Tweets can be of the promo variety. If your Twitter account is for your business, people following you are doing so because they want to know about your business – including promotions. The great thing about Twitter is that people will let you know pretty quickly if you’re blasting them with too much promotion.

Tools for Twittering

At YasTech we use CoTweet to manage our @yastech account. It allows multiple people to manage a multiple Twitter accounts much more easily than logging directly into twitter.com. You could setup a @yourservice account alongside a @yoursales account and have different parts of your company post and respond to customers.

There are plenty of Twitter clients for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and desktop/laptop use. Here’s a few of our favourites:

• Twitter for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch – the official app is the way to go on iOS
• Twitter for Mac – Again, the official app is our recommendation on the Mac desktop/laptop
• Ubersocial for Blackberry – There’s an official app out now, but we still like Ubersocial.
• Twidroyd – According to reviews, this is one of the best for Android. Your mileage may vary.

To Tweet Or Not to Tweet

So that’s a quick look at some of the benefits of Twitter, as well as a couple of the apps we use to check up on Twitter. If you’d like a bit more discussion on whether Twitter is right for your business, send us an email or call us and we’d be happy to walk you through specifics in your industry.

Last week we focused on blogging: the hows, whys and tools of blogging for your business. This week we’re focusing on social media. We’ll be talking primarily about Twitter and Facebook – though the ideas would translate to other similar services.

Should Our Business Have a Twitter Account?

While every social media guru out there will tell you that you should’ve been on Twitter a year ago and if you’re not you’re leaving money on the table – we believe it’s important to consider whether it’s really appropriate for your business to be on Twitter. It’s certainly not going to be worthwhile for every business, so let’s take a look at a few of the things to consider before signing up for a Twitter account.

Do You Have Anything to Say?

Twitter is 140 character tweets from your brain. Or your company’s brain. While it’s not like a website or blog where once you start you’re obligated to keep fresh as content, you still want to make sure you have something of value to add to the community.

Do You Have Time to Have a Conversation?

Twitter isn’t one way communication in the same way that a radio ad, flyer mail out or newspaper advert. You can post a tweet about a special on widgets that you’re offering, and someone could reply asking for your hours that your widget shop is open. If you’re not listening and paying attention to the conversation, potential customers could get turned off by your lack of response.

Are You Prepared for Negative Feedback?

What if someone replies and says that the price of your widgets are still too expensive? Or maybe they say that they last time they were in your store, a sales person was rude to them. What is your policy on customer issues and how might you handle that level of direct feedback?

Still Interested In Signing Up for Twitter?

We’ve focused a bit on the negative, reasons why you might not want to have a Twitter account for your business. For tomorrow’s post we’ll be talking about the benefits of having a Twitter account as well as some of the tools to manage your company’s Twitter account. Be sure to send us an email if you’ve got questions about Twitter you’d like answered!

We promise not to make all the posts on this blog video clips, but these are just too interesting to not watch. It’s a great way to get up to speed on what’s happening with technology and social media, even if you don’t have time to be involved with it yourself.

If you want to find out more about harnessing the power of social media for your business, contact us for more information.

Direct link to video

Via @dejong on twitter.

What do you think? Is your business ready for the already underway social media revolution?

If you want to find out more about harnessing the power of social media for your business, contact us for more information.

Direct link to video

There’s lots of ways to keep up with what we’re up to here at YasTech HQ and most of the links are scattered around our blog and website, but just in case you’re here for the first time (or reading this in a RSS reader perhaps) here’s a quick reference:

• RSS Feed for our blog
• 140 characters (or less) of YasTech wisdom gets posted on Twitter
• Our Facebook page
• Photos we take around YasTech HQ we uplaod to Flickr

There are a lot of different social media sites out there and so far we’re choosing to participate on the main ones – which sites are you on that we’re not and why? Leave us a comment with a link to where you feed your social media addiction!