How to Use Social Media for Your Business

Social media is a both a blessing and a curse, especially to small businesses and those trying to get their business off the ground. When dealing with your business and social media, the medium must be viewed as a business tool. Therefore, you must conduct yourself within the social media in a fashion in which you want your business represented. One thing that you absolutely must keep in mind when it comes to social media is that you never know who is watching.

Facebook is such a phenomenon that a movie, "The Social Network", was made about its beginnings. People connect with old friends from high school, sorority sisters or fraternity brothers from college, former co-workers and so many others. If you are trying to expand your business, you should absolutely use Facebook as a platform in which to spread the word about your business. It sounds so simple, yet many people just do not understand the concept of using Facebook as a business tool.

Obviously, the most important task with Facebook is to get "friends". It may sound lame, but start with people that you know. Create your Facebook account and search for friends by typing their names in the search box. Click "Add as Friend" and wait for them to accept your friend request. Once they accept you, go through their lists and "friend request" people whose names you recognize. Facebook will even give you names of "People You May Know", where you can just click a button and make a friend request. You can click on "See All" and get the entire list of people that you are encouraged to request. Be careful, though. If you make too many friend requests, your account can be blocked from sending messages and making more friend requests for a minimum or two days. SPAM is not allowed on Facebook and you can be reported for it, so make sure you know what the policies of Facebook are.

Once you have your own page set up, use your status as your billboard. Whatever you write in your status will appear in the News Feed of all of your friends. Many people say to keep two Facebook accounts: one personal and one business. That is entirely up to you. Just keep in mind that whatever you post in your status will be viewed as a reflection of your business. Use your status as a way to promote specials that you are running, desires to get business, excitement for upcoming projects and so forth. Facebook status updates are a terrific way to keep people informed about your business activities.

After you get a hang of updating your status and gain at least 25 friends, set up a fan page for your business. Make sure you've got all of the contact information for your business posted. Use a terrific photo of you in action for the main picture of your fan page. Upload videos you your business in action. Upload different albums of events, products, award ceremonies and so forth. Share absolutely everything you possibly can about your business on your fan page. After all, this is the fan page for your business. The people that join it want to know what is going on with your business. There is no such thing as too much information when it comes to your fan page. Encourage people to join by running contests every so often. Suggest the page to all of your friends. Use it as a marketing tool to get leads.

You can generate a lot of business from Facebook alone. If people know that you are looking for business, they will come to you. Facebook makes it appear easier, because all they have to do is send you a message rather than do the legwork on their own. The ability to connect with an unlimited amount of potential clients is the blessing of Facebook.

Word of mouth, however, is the curse of Facebook and any other social media out there. Unhappy clients are much more likely to post about their experience than happy clients. Unhappy clients can trash your reputation in a forum without any substantial proof. Unfortunately, people are more interested in a fight that may erupt between a disgruntled client and the person trying to defend their business than someone giving a compliment about something positive that happened. People feed off of drama. Facebook doesn't have any sort of recourse, except if you report whatever was posted as abuse. Your best course of action is to ignore what is being written, block the user, and encourage former clients to write something positive about you. Defending yourself and engaging the unhappy individual simply makes you look guilty, and everything you write can be taken out of context. Focus on the positive and let the negative go.

Another terrific marketing tool on Facebook is the groups feature. You can peruse groups that have to do with your business, join them, talk about topics that have to do with your business, answer questions and privately message group members to solicit their business. Be careful not to go head-to-head with a competitor in a public forum-you will end up looking petty and unprofessional. Keep yourself open for people to contact you privately, and let them know that they are welcome to. You will be surprised by the connections that you make.

Many people swear by Twitter. For those of you that don't know, Twitter is a social website that allows you 140 characters to talk about what you are doing, offering, thinking, etc. You can give links to websites, follow people, advertise specials, reply to direct messages and so on. Twitter is used by celebrities that have a large following so that they can reach out to their fan base on a more personal level. In order to be effective, you must generate a large following. One way to achieve this is by following those that follow you. Type in a phrase that has to do with your business in the search box, such as "weddings" if you are a wedding planner, and follow all of the members that come up. Often times, they will follow you. Keep building your followers and publishing new messages often, and the business will come.

There are many other forms of social media available, but none quite as successful as Facebook and Twitter. MySpace used to be the number one social network, but was quickly replaced by Facebook. MySpace is now used more by younger people, which is usually not the clientele that serious business people looking to make real deals want to approach.

When it comes to social media, it is a good idea for you not to spread yourself too thin. It takes a lot of time and effort to succeed at social media marketing, especially when it comes to Facebook. Considering you are not earning any money to promote your business, it is better to focus on one or two websites and be at the top than as many sites as you can and end up near the bottom.