Business people and entrepreneurs are well aware now that social media is here to stay and cannot be ignored. Every business needs to consider marketing and promotion of their products in some way and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn are ideal for this purpose.
The benefit to businesses is that you can build a following, engage with your customers and best of all, they are free to use with many other free online tools available to help you. Therefore, there is no reason to get spooked when it comes to using them, even if it is Halloween! The important thing is to embrace each platform with a clear content marketing strategy in mind, which plans your posts ahead of time.
It’s a good idea to also experiment on each platform and see what others are posting, what’s popular and what content your target audience is engaging the most with. However, be wary when viewing other company pages, as you may see their scary costume, which portrays them differently to how they are seen in reality.
Here are the usual suspects at Halloween:
1. The Wicked Witch – The profile that posts only about themselves and doesn’t care about what others are saying. They ignore messages or mentions from other followers.
2. The Pumpkin – The profile that looks professional and worthy of following from the outside, but on the inside, it’s clear that they haven’t posted anything in a long time and their content is poor.
3. The Zombie – The profile that is dull and boring with no signs of life or personality. They just post links and there is no personal or social aspect to their posts. This will put potential customers off following.
4. The Inappropriate One – The profile that tries to be humourous with their posts but often over steps the mark. Asda recently got in trouble for selling a costume labelled ‘Mental patient’ and this kind of story quickly gets shared virally, spreading bad publicity. It’s important to consider your audience and emit any potentially harmful or offensive language before posting so that when things go viral, it’s for positive publicity.
The fifth costume to consider is being ‘Casper – the friendly ghost!’ If you approach social media with a friendly, positive and enthusiastic manner, people will respect you and say good things about you. At first, it may feel odd to interact with strangers but as you thank people for following, respond to their posts and show an interest in their business, they will return the favour and recommend you in conversation. Logging into a social network is like walking into a noisy room but understand that everyone in there wants to hear more from you and talk to you.
For more information and advice about planning a social media strategy for your business or receiving training in Digital Marketing, please contact jon@socialant.co.uk.
Jon Exton
Twitter: @thesocialant
