I’m sure you’ve heard it before — if you’re not on Facebook or Twitter (or at least LinkedIn!), you’re dropping the ball big time for your business. Having an active social media presence is an effective and easy way to engage both current and prospective users. Your online presence can greatly impact a consumer’s decision on whether or not they use your product or service.
Here are five tips to follow when it comes to personalizing your business on social media:
Put a face to the brand. Whether you’re a small business or corporate office, consumers want to see the person or people behind your brand. A key way of accomplishing this is getting your founder or CEO’s image out there. We try to get Peter Taunton’s face on our social media accounts as much as we can so our followers can identify with who he is. We recently featured Peter’s latest philanthropic efforts on the Snap Fitness Corporate Facebook page. In this instance, his donation helped children in Guatemala through Common Hope. I’m sure there’s more to your CEO than his or her business experience. Show this on your social media pages.
Meet the staff. What better way to tell the story of your brand than with the people who know it best? Showcase the employees at your company — show them at work events, helping out in the community, or just going about their everyday lives. For example, to celebrate reaching 100,000 Facebook followers, Snap Fitness employees packed 100,000 meals at Feed My Starving Children. It was a great way to promote brand awareness, while showing one way we impact our community.
Find your voice. This can be tough. You need to know your target audience and how to address them. There’s nothing wrong with adding some flavor to your social media voice. What would you rather share on Facebook: a boring text post or a clever one with an attention-grabbing image? The latter, of course! At Snap Fitness, we keep our content innovative. Get your audience engaged by asking questions and soliciting opinions.
Show off your accomplishments. It’s not bragging if it’s true! What awards has your company garnered in the past few months? Share that with your digital audience. By showing off your honors and accolades, you’ll catch the attention of more prospective customers.
Two words: customer service. If you take one thing away from this article, remember this. Treat your digital customers just like you would if they showed up at your office. A post should never go ignored. Answer any questions and address any comments in a timely manner. Even if their comment isn’t positive, work with them and make sure they have a good experience with your brand. Customer service should be your company’s strongest point on social media.
At the end of the day, business relationships boil down to people working with people. Social media gives you a great way to showcase that. How do you add a personal touch to your social media presence? Share them in the comments. I’d love to hear about them.
By Hayley Schnell, communication specialist at Snap Fitness.
