11 June 2009
How Social Networking can bring your business to life - and how it can be surprisingly fun!

When considering marketing through the medium of social networking, the initial reaction of many companies is lukewarm at best. Facebook is something you do at home – or try your best to stop your employees doing during work hours!

Twitter is a faddy site inhabited by Stephen Fry and possibly one or two other celebrities. No-one can decide whether it will be gone next week or will be the biggest thing in marketing since, someone decided to sell bread pre-sliced.

Perhaps my biggest “concern” was who on earth would find a business profile on a social media site worth joining? Who cares enough to want to receive a twitter about a business?

But in asking that question lies the secret of success. There ARE aspects of any business that are interesting. We all work (well, most of us!) and so we all share some common ground in terms of shared experiences. Also there will be aspects of just about any business that are unique enough or interesting enough to be twitter-worthy or worth posting on a blog.

For example, a client who wanted to give social networking a go but was initially unsure about it has discovered that there are any number of aspects of a rural holiday park that lend themselves to social networking. This includes the challenge of bringing a new caravan onto a site (filmed and uploaded to youtube), local theatre performances and festivals (events posted to Facebook page) and the ever-changing local wildlife with new arrivals of birds and marinelife to the area, as well as some spectacular sea conditions sparked by high winds (the park blog and photo album on facebook).

This same client has actively encouraged all their staff onto Facebook to post about the business, comment on the new flower beds as well as promote the page through their main website so guests can keep in touch with their favourite holiday destination all year round.

Another client uses twitter to keep former guests updated with late availability offers at their hotels – and they have followers by the hundred. They promote Twitter through their regular newsletter as being the best way to be informed about the latest, best deals. They can also throw in the surfing conditions on Cornwall’s north coast for those considering a short weekend break for that purpose.

So, alien and strange though it may seem at the start, promoting your business through Social networks is really just about sharing anything “fun, quirky, useful or interesting” from your day. The actual marketing (late offers, new products etc) happens by itself as part of this process once you become comfortable with sharing this type of information as news. It’s actually more fun than a lot of “work” and could lead to you booting your kids off Facebook or Blogger rather more frequently then they would wish!