Are you using social media effectively? Ways to measure its impact on your business.

More and more businesses are now using the power of social media to help their business.  But what is success on social media? Many businesses focus on counting the number of followers/fans/connections on the relevant media whether that’s Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or any other of the many many platforms out there.  But I want to encourage you to look beyond this simple figure as there is a lot more to be gained. Building postive relationships with potential customers, suppliers, your business community and building on exisiting relationships will help your business.  In turn these relationship can help your income and your profits.

 

Are you actually talking with your followers, fans or connections? Counting conversations may give you a better picture of how successful social media is for you.  Social media is about building relationships, so if you have 2000 followers who you never engage with, then it’s little more effective than having none.  Notice I say talking with, not talking to…if you’re using social media to purely broadcast sales messages, again, it will have the impact of standing in a networking group and shouting through a loud speaker – lots of noise but little conversation.

 

Are your connections responding to what you share? If people are sharing or responding to what you share this is a good indication.  To make this even more effective make a note of anything you have shared that has gained a response like this, this will help you to better tailor the information for your followers.

 

Are you building and building-on relationships?  Social media gives you a great opportunity to get to know business-related people better. People you have perhaps met as customers, at networking groups, trade shows..wherever.  If you are getting to know people better through social media, in a way that is relevant to your business, then it’s having an impact. Look through your list of fans and think about who you have go to know, or got to know better through this medium.

 

Are people using social media to comment on what you do? If you’re gaining feedback about your business, positive or negative then you being on social media to respond (not react!) to this, and help your customers feel happy with what you do, or to share the great things people are saying about what you do, then this is having a positive impact on your business.

 

So, look beyond the nice juicy number of followers/fans and connections and see what real impact social media is having for you.

 

If you would like help with social media, or anything web related for your business, get in touch.  We work with businesses in Chester, Cheshire and across the UK to demystify the web and help you gain control of your business online.