Is social media the missing piece of your marketing puzzle?

Could social media be the missing part of the puzzle in promoting your business? Many of those businesses considering social media in Berkshire approach have asked and answered this – but many more have yet to realise the value of what is still the new kid on the marketing and PR block.

Just stop and think who your clients are? Do they use social media? With over a billion people on Facebook and 26 million of those in the UK there might just be a few on Facebook. The average age on Twitter is 37 – how old is your average customer? What about the social media network that means business? Surely you are on LinkedIn – are you active? Or do you ignore those invitations to become ‘LinkedIn’?

As an established public speaker just about every audience I speak to will inevitably ask which social media channels people use and while the number has grown over the past five years, there are always some not yet using social media – but of course they have come along to learn about it. What about those who do not attend such seminars?

Few can claim not to have heard about social media and among those who have heard, are folks who still resist and throw up barriers to justify their resistance. It takes too long, it is full of teenagers wasting their time or no-one will be interested in what they do. Wrong on all three counts!

It does need a blog that is updated regularly and a blog is simply a website, preferably part of your own where you write about what you do and how you help your clients. When we explain to new PR and social media clients we’ve been blogging since 2006 and have published hundreds of blog posts since then, they roll their eyes and see it as some Herculean task.

On the contrary, little and often works and while we started blogging long before many others even realised its value, the truth is slow and steady will still win the race.

This begs the question: ‘Do your competitors blog?’ If they do you absolutely need to start, but if they do not it is even more important you begin – within a few short months it will be almost impossible for them to catch you. And blogging is the cornerstone of any effective social media strategy as it gives you content to share on those social media channels.

A strategy is the difference from dabbling in social media and being truly successful in how it contributes to your business goals and you should certainly know why you are blogging and using social media.