How to Utilize Social Media for Your Business: Part 5

Once you've done your research and figured out which social media site you'll use for your business (and what your goals are), you'll need to determine the best approach to achieve those goals.

The key is to define your approach before your get started so you know what needs to get done. Create an outline of your intended approach while looking over your goals to make sure they match up. Will you:

• communicate product information?
• provide industry-related news?
• and/or offer a mix of business and personal information?

1. Communicating Product Information

Communicating product information may seem pretty straight forward. You've probably spent hours doing this over the phone throughout your years in business, but social media works much differently. Almost every social media site prefers visual content. Check out this blog for a guide on which types of sites work well for which type of content. So, you'll want some killer product photos that can speak almost entirely for themselves. You can edit the photos so the price is included and any noteworthy features are all within the image itself.

2. Providing Industry Related News

Industry related news can come directly from you and your business or from other businesses within your industry. It's just a matter of what is relevant to your target audience. If you are sharing an article that you wouldn't take the time to read yourself why would you expect your following to read it? Share information that your target audience will engage with and remind them to do so with each post by saying something along the lines of: What did you think? What have you found in your experience? Etc.

3. Offering a mix of business and personal information

It's important for your social media to showcase your business and your personality. The whole point of social media is to engage with your audience. So, if you're only posting things to try to sell to them, you're not going to benefit from social media. Share things about your everyday life, but use your judgment about what should be kept private.

There are many ways to approach social media and many tools to help make it more manageable as well. Just make just that your approach is in line with your goals so that you can measure your success when the time comes.

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