Social Media and Networking for Businesses

Social media

Without a question, our use of social media has brought clients through our doors here in Walla Walla, but how can it help you?  In this article I will cover the top contender's strengths and weaknesses.  To learn which one is best for you and how to evaluate cost per acquisition across the different platforms, we are always available for consultation.

Top social media contenders

Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter are the obvious winners.  There are many more out there but these four currently have such a large portion of traffic that I will only discuss these four in this article.

Facebook: You can set up either a Facebook business account or Facebook personal account.  A personal account (by Facebook policy) is restricted to personal use only and cannot be used for business advertisements.  A Facebook business page is the recommended route for your business or special interest group.  Our Facebook page was set up as a Facebook, Official Page, Local Business... see image for a snapshot.

LinkedIn: From the ground up, LinkedIn was built with business networking in mind.  It's strength is to help you grow your list of contacts by helping you connect with friends, business acquaintances, former workplace associates and of course your friends from those university days.  For some it could be handy to hide your list of of LinkedIn Connections so you don't hand a concise list of your key clients/connections to your competitor.   This is a feature that Facebook is still sadly lacking for the businesses or privacy-minded people.

YouTube: Video content is engaging in a way that static content never will be.  People can remember video content four or more times better than just reading text on your website.  YouTube has made displaying video on your website quite easy.  There are multiple accounts types though we set our YouTube channel up as a director account.  One great advantage to using YouTube is that you can post your video in one central location and then display it both on YouTube and embed it on your website as well.  Simply copy and paste a little snippet they provide and you're on your way.

Twitter: This social media platform is all about communicating short updates about your company or a focused topic instantly.  Twitter, like other social media, helps give your clients a window into your business.  It will help them see some of your activity and culture, proving you really are a legitimate and active business.  Some businesses utilize Twitter as customer service tool for up to the minute info or additional ways to drive traffic to your website.

Social media metric analysis

Social media sites are typically free... but not if you count your time.  It does take a considerable amount of time to maintain a successful presence on social media networks.  We just look at it as a reinvention of good old face to face networking.  That is also free but takes time too :)

If you use Google Analytics to track you website visitors, you can use advanced segments to get a clearer picture of your social media success.  

Finally, to determine if you are having a successful social media campaign, it is necessary use a few tools to determine your return on investment (ROI).  Which one is performing better for you and is it reaching your intended audience.  Here are some generalized social media ROI stats.

A shameless plug

Rapidfyre web design, located in Walla Walla, Washington, is a web company devoted to working with other forward thinking businesses.  If you'd like someone to manage your web presence and are looking for a capable company in the social media platform, we'd love to talk.