Strategy for business in social networks

Social networks are in fashion, everyone talks about them, in the last five years they have had such spectacular growth that they are changing the way of being and browsing the internet, especially Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.Its presence in the business world is more than evident, we already move in a completely digitized and social world, so your company has to be on social networks. The key is knowing how to determine what tone and message is used in each channel, to diversify and reach your target audience.

Social Networks Marketing Strategy

In which everyone agrees on its enormous potential as an interactive communication tool with customers and as a support for electronic commerce, due to its viral capacity and influence on consumer purchasing decisions, which can be supported through networks on the advice of their acquaintances or other consumers like them.

• Hence, the presence in social networks has quickly become a relevant element in communication and loyalty strategies as well as in market research and customer analysis techniques.
• But the presence on social networks is much more than that by offering an excellent opportunity to connect with other people with the same interests or concerns as you.
• It is a good help to break with the traditional “loneliness of the self-employed” , by offering you the possibility of quickly contacting other freelancers with whom to share advice and opinions or with whom to make professional collaborations.

Self-employed person interested in being on social networks

The first thing that as an entrepreneur or self-employed worker you should ask yourself is if you are really interested in being on social networks, taking into account the characteristics of your clients and the effort in time and therefore the cost that this may entail.
Well, the response to the presence in social networks will be positive when these three circumstances occur:
Most of your current and potential clients use the internet and social networks on a daily basis , as is the case with young people or adults who have grown up in parallel with the internet.
These clients are numerous enough to make your investment in social networks profitable.
When you have the ability to dedicate the necessary resources (your time and / or money to hire someone to help you) to have a presence in accordance with your business, your communication strategy and the expectations of your customers.

Prepare your social media plan

First of all, you should prepare a plan that helps you define what you want to do on social networks and serves as a guide. Do not complicate yourself, one or two pages answering the following points may be enough:

Content:

The content is king! You must reflect on the content that you are going to disseminate. It is essential to provide relevant content that adds value and that is largely self-produced. To do this, you must ask yourself about what your customers want to know about your business and if you can contribute something else, for example knowledge that may be of interest to them through a blog, images and videos.

Recipients and channel:

Who am I going to address? How are my recipients, generally my current and / or potential clients? What channels are they on? Which ones am I going to be in?

Communication style:

you should think about the tone and language of the messages in each medium as well as the rate of publication, avoiding possible user saturation.

Objectives:

the most common are improving customer service, attracting new customers through word of mouth, branding or promoting your brand and improving your knowledge of your customers thanks to the collection of their evaluations.

You must be patient, growing takes time and perseverance is essential. It is preferable to be in a single social network and do it well than to be in 4 and not do it well in any. Start with the one that is most interesting for your business and over time consider expanding to some more.

• Top social networks that will make your business succeed
• Today social networks go much further.
• They are a necessary alternative to grow businesses. And an excellent option to sell more and better .

The importance of social networks for companies

Not many years ago, doubts fell on the role that the Internet would play in companies .Now the doubt comes from the hand of social networks for freelancers and companies .

• Are they so necessary? -Yes.
• Because they improve interaction with customers.
• Because they create and promote the brand image.
• Because they allow you to capture leads and get closer to potential customers.
• And because they ultimately help scale business to the next level.

Top and Best social networks for business and companies?

Instagram

• Instagram is Massive network, widespread among young people. Ideal to improve the reach in fashion businesses, gastronomy, leisure, sports .Relatively easy to work with.
• We cannot talk about the power of the image on social networks without mentioning Instagram and its already 700 million monthly active users at the beginning of 2017, which makes it the social network that has grown the most in the last two years.
• This platform can be a great marketing tool for our business if we are clear about our online strategy.
• Due to its visual nature, it is being used by businesses in which an attractive flow of images is generated to share, for example the fashion trade, event organization, tourism or decoration companies.
• Before opening an Instagram account for your company, you should answer a series of questions to determine if this channel is the right one for your organization.

Also Read: History of Instagram

Facebook

The Facebook social network with the most users. Frequented by an older audience than in the two previous networks, the average age here is around 40 years.

• In Facebook, practically all sectors can be integrated with excellent results. Ideal for companies and freelancers.
• It is the network of networks, with more than 1.86 billion active users in the world.
• Originally conceived to communicate and share with friends, its potential for the business world is enormous, as evidenced by the interest of large companies and the fortune that its founder has amassed.
• To have a presence on Facebook you must first have a personal profile and then create an associated company page. You can find detailed information on this facebook help website .

Also Read: Facebook Fan Badges

Twitter

• Tool to communicate and viralize content. Twitter allows creating community around business relatively easily. It has a mixed audience with an average age of about 30 years.
• This network became popular especially since 2009. Since then it has been made with 320 million users worldwide and about three in Spain, although there are no official data.
• In the last three years, its user growth has stagnated but it maintains its importance due to its ability to communicate in real time.
• It is based on microblogging, that is, users publish small posts of a maximum of 140 characters. And if they are fond of it, they do it numerous times a day.

It has become a very powerful communication tool that is better prepared to be used by companies and businesses. And for the self-employed and SMEs, of course, in fact 25% already use it as we tell you in ” 1 out of every 4 twitter profiles is self-employed “.

Youtube

• Catch viewers of almost all ages. YouTube is the most versatile social network.
• A wide variety of businesses can be boosted through your sponsored videos. Creativity is key in this network.
• If there is a network of great success in recent times that is YouTube.
• This platform created in 2005 to upload and view videos has more than one billion users, a third of Internet users, who generate billions of views.
• In addition, YouTube has more than 70 local versions in 76 different languages. Many companies use it as a simple repository of videos that are later energized on other social networks, but youtubers have shown the true potential that a YouTube channel can have.

Does this data convince you to integrate video into your marketing strategy? Keep in mind that video marketing contributes to SEO positioning and engagement. Other advantages are the low cost of production thanks to new technologies, the ease of sharing content, differentiation from other companies or the fact that the display helps the user stay longer on the page.

Also Read: How to Podcast on YouTube

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn is, along with Facebook, the “most mature” social network, with an average age of users slightly over 40 years old. I
• deal to find work as a freelance. Especially useful for freelancers looking to capture high-quality leads.
• The main professional network is Linkedin, with more than 500 million users in the world and 9 million in Spain. it is also in a growth phase.
• It is used mainly for job search and establishing professional contacts, in fact it is a virtual space where many people publish their CV. But it is also increasingly used to share professional content.
• It is a genuinely labor tool that is perfect for locating clients and making themselves known, a technique defined as social selling that the self-employed today is beginning to incorporate into their social media strategy.

It is essential to understand that Linkedin is not only a place where you can upload your resume but also where you can have an immense network of contacts, get recommendations and publish content, a place where you can build a good reputation online and create your personal brand. But to achieve all this you have to create a good profile from the beginning

Whatsapp

• In recent years WhatsApp has become the king of instant messaging platforms, especially since Facebook bought the app.
• The numbers are stratospheric: more than 1.2 billion active users globally in 2017, more than 2 billion daily messages and 1.6 billion photos and 250 million videos. Without forgetting that Spain is the fourth country in the world where WhatsApp is used the most.
• With all this, the service that this platform can provide to entrepreneurs and freelancers seems evident.
• Now you must be careful about the very personal nature of communication via WhatsApp and not act intrusively.

That is why it is a good communication channel for information related to the provision of a company’s service, but it is not used at a promotional and marketing level, in fact the platform itself combats this type of use. For example, it is a good way to report an incident on an order. But you should not use it to communicate discounts and promotions.

Also Read: WhatsApp launches instant payments

Snapchat

• This is undoubtedly the snapchat social network of millennials, every day more than 500 million snaps are sent and today it has more than 150 million active users.
• It is logical that companies that want to reach the youngest include Snapchat in their online marketing strategy.
• Even if your company is not aimed at a teenage audience, this messaging service allows you to give your business image a facelift and boost the young market.
• It is important to be up-to-date with new technologies, although what we always have to bear in mind is that the message, the public, is as different as the channel.
• So “we can not copy and paste” the same message on different social networks, it does not work that way.
  Snapchat is the best channel to disseminate a coupon or promotional discount, due to its ephemeral nature, it ensures that offers are disseminated exclusively among users.

Pinterest

• Together with Instagram and Flickr, it forms the top 3 of the networks for images. Launched in 2010, its growth in recent years has been limited, even so it has 158 million active users worldwide.
• However, it is probably one of the best options to publicize a small business and promote its articles or services given its possibility of cataloging through hashstags, labels, shared boards and the repin option.
• Therefore, it is a highly viral social platform. Official sources of the company itself indicate that 70% of users save links and click on them.

Among its many other advantages, especially for businesses in the retail sector, accessories and tourism, is the ease of use of its interface and integration with other social networks to capture and transmit brand image to a larger audience for which you can create coupons for discounts, contests or boards by keywords.

Came

This is the social network for the youngest due to its ease of use, speed of messages and virality of the videos. To record a video you just have to press the screen and voila, it is also fully integrated with Twitter.
Vine offers many advantages to brands, among other reasons because in a short time they are capable of transmitting a lot. In these 6 seconds of video you can launch a promotional mini-campaign for a product and service. There are also several online applications that allow you to analyze the effectiveness of the campaigns, just by entering the data.

Periscope

It is a streaming service that allows you to broadcast live, free of charge, through Twitter. The greatest advantage that this social network offers to brands is its ability to humanize the brand through small live videos. Among other functions, it gives you the ability to broadcast in real time through Twitter.
Some companies already use it to show the funniest face of offices and employees, because we forget that behind the screens there are people of flesh and blood. Although the videos that are most popular in this application are those of travel, because their slogan is precisely “Explore the world through the eyes of others”

Vimeo

Vimeo is the other great video marketing platform created in 2004. Unlike YouTube, it is a pioneer site for hosting high definition videos even with the standard version, but if you want to achieve higher quality there is also the Vimeo Pro payment option, oriented to commercial use.
As we mentioned before, the use of video is useful for your business for three main reasons: to facilitate SEO positioning, generate trust and be a source of traffic. But in addition to these reasons common to You Tube and Vimeo

Flickr

Flickr is a free storage platform for photos and videos that also allows you to edit, organize, search and share images in full resolution and recommended with a Creative Commons license. At the beginning, it had a worldwide user base of 100 million. It was the first social network for images, but in recent years Pinterest and especially Instagram have relegated it when companies choose it in their social media strategy.
Among its advantages, that of indexing in Google and other search engines such as Bing as well as being integrated with Facebook and your website. Another of its most notable options is the tagging system that allows you to include URLs on the user’s pages.

Tips for safe use of professional social networks

Use a password manager

Closing the door to attackers should be the first priority. To do this, establish strong and secure passwords.
The password managers are the best alternative to keep the door closed. Not only do they allow you to create strong, hacker-proof passwords, but they store them securely on the device of your choice.

Monitor your presence on social media

Many companies and freelancers detect the risks in the social networks of their businesses too late.
Damage can be contained if caught early.
Therefore, it is necessary that you review the activity of the profiles and everything that surrounds your business on social networks on a regular basis.

• Set that review task on the calendar:
• What do they post about you?
• How do your customers interact?
• Do you see any suspicious activity?
• Or, if you prefer, delegate that task to a social media professional.

Invest in online reputation

If you are the victim of one of the most feared attacks in the online environment, the one related to reputation or brand image, take immediate action .
There are professionals specialized in controlling and solving this type of attack on the brand image. They will help you improve your reputation on social media and solve the problems arising from the attack.

Also Read: massive upcoming Technology trends

Tips for using social media in business

• Focus your efforts – Creating a profile on each social network is not usually the best option,
• Create unique and specific content – Some networks are “more immediate”, in them short and direct content works better; other networks allow the creation of a community through more extensive content.
• Measure, analyze and improve – Most companies with a social media presence do not track the returns offered by these platforms.Impressions, reach, clicks, interactions, conversions.

Risks of using social networks for companies

Account vulnerability

• Access to business accounts by cybercriminals is often caused by the use of weak passwords .
• It is also common for the “gateway” to be an inappropriate permission setting or a combination of personal and professional accounts.
• This leads to numerous problems: posts not allowed, theft of sensitive information.

Damage to online reputation

• More unknown are the problems related to the reputation of the brands , the “online image” of the company or the self – employed .
• These problems can come from identity theft , generally through the creation of fraudulent accounts (visually identical) whose purpose is to steal sensitive information.
• It can also happen due to a direct attack on the business image. The attack on online reputation usually comes with a succession of negative comments on different social networks.
• Managing reputation online both on and off social media is one of the great challenges for small businesses.

The Future Of Social Media Networks

To develop your marketing strategy in social networks, you should know that the success or failure of social networks goes hand in hand with the evolution of technology and the preferences and uses of users, which is why the social media ecosystem is constantly changing. .
So much so that we are witnessing the announced death -or degenerative disease- of some of the networks that emerged in the midst of this network of marketing for companies and that had a greater or lesser pull.
which at the time was the most representative social network for the youth community with 13 million users and ideal for advertising if the company’s audience was between 15 and 25 years of age. However, it went from being a social network to changing its business model into that of a virtual mobile operator.
Foursquare has also been forgotten or indifferent. It emerged as a Geolocation API social network suitable for catering and hospitality businesses that has not had much significance. Like Myspace, another network reported missing.