Social Media is a very powerful tool for nearly every business. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and others aren’t just meant for after work hours while sitting on your couch. Figuring out how to use these accounts for business purposes can be a difficult task but with a little fun, determination, and knowledge – your business too can reach a larger client base through Social Media.
Top Social Media sites for Businesses
Facebook – With over 1 billion active users (650+ million are active daily) Facebook is the largest Social Media site available today. Creating an effective Facebook Business Page isn’t just a walk in the park. Reaching your audience on a personal level, engaging them, and creating a sense of community needs to be a priority. Whether you’re running a contest, posting photos, questions, polls, or simple content status updates – always keep in mind what your audience wants to see and engage with. Facebook has strict policies for business accounts and will delete an account if you break them!
Twitter – Roughly 550 million active users and 58 million tweets a day. Your business too can benefit from their simple but effective website. Roughly 40% of those people don’t tweet but merely watch what other’s do. So get your business on Twitter; customize it, optimize it, and use it! Using ‘#’ the hashtag sign with a Tweet, ex: #SocialMedia – is a way to directly reach audience members that also use this same hashtag sign or people searching a particular hashtag. Tweet coupons, holiday sales, business open times, and more.
Pinterest – This expanding Social Media website is a phenomenal avenue to create buzz around new products. With nearly 50 million users and each visit pulling in just over 14 minutes each time. Also, 80% of pins are repined… yep that’s right! Now that’s a very 
satisfying stat! Using Pinterest to promote special event products, highlighting your top picks/products, grouping them together around a theme, and even directly linking products back to your website!
Instagram – In my opinion Instagram is a photo blog that business have incorporated into cross-marketing with their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Just as Twitter, Instagram is a very minimal Social Media site but has the opportunity to be very powerful if used correctly. Instagram can be used in a variety of ways for businesses such as, Contests – Photo of the Day – Hashtags (similar to Twitter) – Cross Promotion with Facebook/Twitter – and simply a photo is worth a thousand words connecting with people in ways you never thought.
Google Plus – Google+ is still on my radar although it’s popularity within the Business Social Media world has still yet to go BOOM. Google Plus has a great opportunity to rank well within Search Engines, especially Google (obviously!). Just as Facebook, users can “plus 1” your page which helps with search engine ranking within your website. Cross Promoting and linking with other Social Media accounts is also key. Don’t forget to Engage, create a Community, and excite people!
LinkedIn – A much more Professional Social Media website where business professionals and businesses engage together. LinkedIn is great place for business to engage with similar businesses, find potential clients, business partners, and recruiting. This is also a great website for overall promotion and advertising. With 120+ million users and a CPC advertising program, you just may want to give it a shot since you set your limits!
I’m an Independent Web Development Consultant located on the edge of the Black Hills in Rapid City, South Dakota. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and more are all exciting venues to engage your customers. They offer relationships via Messages, Photos, Videos, Forums, Blogs, and more – powered by users of common interests. Let me optimize and manage your accounts today!