Top Ten Tips for Using Social Media

Here are the top ten tips that came from a recent IoD meeting in Berkshire:

1. Update your profile on LinkedIn: this is a tool to manage an extended network


for communication and CRM and a valued source of information. It is also a

way for you to establish and build credibility in the marketplace, but beware of

using it to overtly sell.

2. Think of social media as your new PR tool: it is a really cost effective way to

manage PR for a many businesses, but you must take as much care over your

branding and messaging as you would with traditional media. Don’t forget to

check on your own organisation’s house rules on media engagement.

3. Blogging is one of the most effective forms of social media, and it is underutilised

by many organisations. This tool can quickly establish credibility and

provide a more ‘personal’ insight into your organisation, but the golden rule is to

use it consistently e.g. once a week, twice a month.

4. Use social media as a method to manage existing customer relationships –

don’t just see it as a tool for new business generation and in any case recognise

that the cost to your business of attracting new customers is much greater than

retaining existing relationships.

5. Social networking usage can have an apparently positive impact on search

engine optimisation (SEO) and therefore the significance of your website.

6. “Crowd Sourcing” is a social networking enabled phenomenon, whereby

corporate market research can be carried out by posing questions to your

electronic community.

7. Twitter has potential business value due to its real-time nature. People are only

presented with the latest Tweets unless they choose to trawl back though older

ones and therefore it lends itself to “today’s news alerts”.

8. Don’t see social media as a replacement for traditional marketing methods: you

must do both. (One delegate had analysed the cost of generating a lead via

social media as opposed to traditional methods and found that the costs were

broadly similar)

9. The mature generations need to embrace social networking – ignore it at your

peril!

10. Keep up to date: look for training courses and don’t be embarrassed by your

lack of knowledge, many people feel the same and you will find that you will

make many new contacts and also learn how to communicate with those

contacts in new ways!

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