Social media isn’t going anywhere – it’s here to stay and whether you choose to take advantage of it or not can be detrimental to your business’ success.
There are many social media platforms that one can take advantage of to increase business visibility on the web. The most common ones used are:
- Facebook - www.facebook.com
- Over 1 billion active users as of September 2012.
- Twitter – www.twitter.com
- Over 500 million registered users - generating over 340 million tweets daily.
- YouTube – www.youtube.com
- Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month.
- In 2011, YouTube had more than 1 trillion views or around 140 views for every person on Earth.
- LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com
- As of January 2013, LinkedIn reports more than 200 million users in more than 200 countries.
- Google+ - plus.google.com
- As of December 2012, Google+ has a total of 500 million registered users of whom 235 million are active on a monthly basis.
Between each of these five popular social media platforms, the potential for business growth and exposure if done right, is priceless.
In fact, if your company or business isn’t listed, present or using any of the social media platforms above, you could be loosing out on many potential business opportunities and clients.
Great! So how much does Social Media cost me? Well, that’s the good news, it costs absolutely nothing to set up and jump right into the action. However, it does cost time and as we all know, time = money. BUT, in this day and age where almost everyone is using some form of social media, you need to ask yourself: can I really afford to neglect or shun social media in getting my business out there?
General purpose of Social Media:
- Setting up pages and accounts on various social media platforms.
- Creating and posting content for users to read, look at and interact with.
- Generating web traffic using these platforms, creating brand and product awareness.
While it’s great to have all these social media pages and accounts, it should not be neglected once set up. Many people seem to have this idea: “I created a Facebook and Twitter page – I’m now trendy and that’s more than enough…”
WRONG!
What people fail to realise or understand is that social media is a continuous and ongoing extension of your business that needs to be regularly updated with fresh content. Here are five working examples of large South African companies using social media correctly. They post new content regularly, promote discussion and interact with users.
“But I don’t know what to put on my Facebook and Twitter pages!” is something we often hear. What ever you want to share with your users is up to you, however here are some ideas to help you generate some content for your social media pages:
- Advertise your other social media pages. eg. on Facebook, let everyone know you’re on Twitter and vice-versa.
- Competitions! This is a massive traffic driving force. People love free things – they can’t get enough of it. Give away something – T-shirts, concert tickets, Playstations, free product trials or services. This will promote users sharing your page and competition with their friends.
- Tell people about your services. Using nugget-sized information, keep it straight to the point and let your users know what you actually do. Use interesting pictures to keep it fresh. People love imagery.
- Quotes. Find some inspirational or motivating quotes and post them on your Twitter and Facebook pages. People love reading positive and motivational words.
- Blog posts. If your company has a blog (we highly recommend that it should!), post links to the blog posts so that users can see what you’re blogging about. This is a great blog traffic driving force.
The online landscape has changed in the past few years and if you haven’t been keeping up, you’ll soon realise that having just your website is not enough these days. Social media has boomed and is here to stay.
With large South African companies like FNB, Axe Deodorant, MTN, Samsung and even Microsoft using social media platforms to their advantage, attracting large amounts of new users – ask yourself if your business can do the same?
Our social media links:
If you would like assistance in getting your social media campaign or presence off the ground, please contact us on 084 7022 984 / info@manic-creations.co.za to arrange a face-to-face meeting, where we will assess, assist and get your social media off the ground at an affordable price.
About Us
We are a small business established in Durban, South Africa in 2008. We specialize in Website design, development and website hosting as well as photography and video production.