What is the big deal with Social Media?
What is the big deal with Social Media?Social media isn’t just for posting a link to your latest blog post or sharing what you had for dinner. Entrepreneurs have a powerful tool at their fingertips. They just don’t always know what to do with it. When used correctly, social media can be a research tool, a crowd sourcing platform and help gain publicity.
Social Media Secret #1: Free Research
You could pay to do in-depth research to see how consumers like your brand so far. You could pay to have surveys designed to send to your customers. Or, you could engage with the social media following you’ve already built. This secret works best if you have a medium to large following.
Ask your followers questions to gain insight into what is most important to them. For instance, if you want to run a promotion, ask followers what type of promotion they would be most excited about. All it costs is time and you get answers directly from customers quickly and easily. The best part is you can do all types of research on a regular basis. Your followers just enjoy you asking for their input.
Social Media Secret #2: Crowd Source Projects
While you might not be crowd sourcing in a more traditional sense, social media does give a large group of individuals the ability to help you come up with new ideas for products, services, and campaigns. Imagine wanting to create a YouTube video to market your company. Your followers could help you plan the video from start to finish.
Maybe you are not sure what features to add to an existing product. Ask your followers how they would make a product more useful. Some might be outlandish, but others could turn an okay seller into the next must have product.
Depending on the network you use, you can even find talent to help with your projects. For instance, on LinkedIn you might find an editor to help make that YouTube video look more professional. Think of social media networks as the ultimate crowdsourcing option.
Social Media Secret #3: Gain Valuable Publicity
Entrepreneurs are always looking for good ways to get their name and brand in front of the right people. Journalists and authority bloggers are always looking for the next big story. Find the journalists and bloggers in your niche and follow them. Many of them send out requests asking for stories or interviews on topics. This is your chance to volunteer.
You can also send them information about you and your company. Maybe your product helped a community get clean water after a disaster. Perhaps you developed a new innovative app. Tweet about it with relevant hashtags that the journalists and bloggers you follow use often. It gets their attention and makes them start reading your tweets. Getting an interview or mention from some of these people can quickly boost your audience and brand.
Getting a little creative with how you use social media helps you do far more than just socialize. It makes social media a tool that saves you money while improving your company.