Using social networking websites for your business? Your experience

helen.courtney

Has any businesses used social networking websites (Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter) for their businesses. What did they use it for and was it beneficial. Im especially interested in what tangible value it added to the business or what it worth investing the time in it. Thanks

Smcgie

Its free and I only put a facebook page up last week and I have one big job already. It doesn't cost anything to promote your name. Just try not to leave the page tacky looking.

helen.courtney

Thats great to get business so quickly, what do you mean about not being "tacky". It is too much of an over sell or putting up stuff that in appropriate to what you are promoting?

tomED

We use it all the time and yes it can be beneficial, however it depends on what type of business you are in.

No-one really knows what the best strategy for marketing there business through social mediums is yet as it's so new - one things for sure, it's not something you should overlook.

Two things you should look at are:
Social Media Revolution 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

and

Irish companies overview of their social media campaign - http://blog.blacknight.com/social-media-and-a-hosting-provider-domain-registrar.html

Gizmoses

Ive an online games store i set up myself and it got 500 hits in 2 days from facebook, so facebook definately works, twitter not so much unless youve got a good 1000 followers, myspace is dead in Ireland and England as far as i can see, but maybe for the american market myspace would be good.

RATM

Wonder how long it'll be before Facebook start charging businesses to put a page up. They have 300 million users so its quite a massive marketplace.

tinnuvial

I announced my new business on Linked In and got my first customer that day...mind you no more since from that source.

I have a facebook page and get an enquiry a day from it but I work hard at it, I send out tips and articles (I'm a service provider, not a product seller) of interest to my followers. I'm currently driving traffic by offering a discount to facebook users who quote a code given only on my facebook page.

I also found that while my webpage is on about page 3/4 of results on google by facebook page for the business is on page 1. Its worth it for that alone.

Gizmoses

RATM wrote: »

Wonder how long it'll be before Facebook start charging businesses to put a page up. They have 300 million users so its quite a massive marketplace.

500 million

Acoshla

Facebook has actually brought me a lot of business and contacts, I started my Business Page in March I think, I had around 300 fans for a long time but it has shot up to 550 in the last few weeks.

I'm lucky in that what I do is a very visual thing, so Facebook lets people look through photos of my work and see comments from happy customers, and it's a great informal way for them to ask me questions about possible orders etc.

unklerosco

I use facebook and find it great.. Brilliant for interacting with your customers. I'm in the childcare sector so most of our fans are parents of children that take part in our services..

I use it to announce news about what we do, run competitions, feedback etc. It's fantastic... I doubt facebook will charge for a business page, they make their money through the ads.. I've spent €700 in the last year on adds..

mneylon

RATM wrote: »

Wonder how long it'll be before Facebook start charging businesses to put a page up. They have 300 million users so its quite a massive marketplace.

Well they're already encouraging us all to spend more on ads

Gizmoses

yea well i think if people keep advertising they wont charge...and who isnt going to advertise with a audience of 500 million

helen.courtney

Thanks everyone for the replies. and its great that you are getting business from the sites. Just a few more questions that I was wondering about?
How often do you post to your site?
Did you have an plan an on line strategy for your business at the begining?
and finally.. has anyone done any type of training/courses on this area. From my own experience, Ive just learned how to use SNS for my business from literally messing around on it and from using FB socially. I wonder if there are courses out there and would it be worth investing in it or just learn from mistakes.

bigneacy

I use facebook and twitter, Facebook for general public and twitter for networking. It works well for me!

I update the accounts about 2 or 3 times a week, I think any more than that and people get pissed off...

I didn't do any training... I mean its not rocket science - it's just marketing 101. The best way to do it is trial and error and just play around with it. Read up on facebook marketing campaigns that other companies have done. The facebook promotion tool looks interesting. I have yet to try it but may do so in the future.

helen.courtney

Hi everyone, just the flip side of this, has anyone had a bad experience using SNS, and has it had an impact on your business. Perhaps, somneone posting poor reviews or comments, and how have you reacted to it, positively/negatively..??

eziite

I use Twitter, LinkedIn & Facebook for business.

What I found is:
1) Twitter is basically chatting. You can find some value in it if:
- you need answer to question / link to resources - people are eager to help you with anything you need. E.g. I researched agile project management tools and I got about list of 10 popular ones in twitter.
- you need help in your business. E.g. I got lift to Belfast to event, free tickets to events I wanted to go, iPhone for presentation for one day and much more
- you want to connect with somebody. A lot of people follow journalists, target clients and make conversations with them every day. This allows you put "foot in the door" when it comes to selling.
2) Facebook is B2C market. If you are targeting B2B better go to LinkedIn.
I never really tried to do Facebook campaigns as it is not our business, but I found Facebook a bit useless for B2B.
3) LinkedIn
- Groups - there is a lot of groups on LinkedIn in Ireland. You can use it for posting your news or interesting articles. They get sent to mails and stays there forever.
- Connections. Connect with people and you will see their e-mails/phone numbers. You can see their status updates and events they are attending. Very good if you want to target particular business person.
- Companies. Follow companies and see what they are up to.
- Jobs. Never tried but I assume you can do job posts too

Gizmoses

Thats good advice

tomED

helen.courtney wrote: »

Hi everyone, just the flip side of this, has anyone had a bad experience using SNS, and has it had an impact on your business. Perhaps, somneone posting poor reviews or comments, and how have you reacted to it, positively/negatively..??

The flip side really comes down to if you aren't handling it correctly IMO.

I think receiving negative comments is actually a good thing as it allows you to publicly respond to someone's grip, rather than hiding it away under the carpet.

Airing it in public and showing everyone that you have done all you can to solve the customers problem paints a picture of a company worth working with.

Bluetonic

I haven't seen anyone mention content yet. Content is key to social networking for businesses. If you're not going to keep the content fresh and up to date then don't bother with social networking as it just give a lazy impression of your business.

It's quite easy to find content to post about, for instance set up Google Alerts about information which is relevant to your business area and post about that.

For the like of Twitter there are plenty of tools out there that will allow you to automatically get focused followers. The more followers you have, the more you will get.

The simplest form of course is to ensure you blog. Not only will this allow you to interact with your customers but also when used correctly increase your search engine ranking. These blogs can be combined with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.., Also you may need to look at other social networks depending on your market.

writhen

Hi,
Can anyone tell me if they set up specific business accounts or just fan pages linked from their own personal accounts?

PaulPinnacle

writhen wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if they set up specific business accounts or just fan pages linked from their own personal accounts?

The former is in breach of FB's T&C's. That said, many have done it and very few seem to have had any problems with it, it's just a risk I wouldn't be willing to take.

A page also gives a lot more freedom in terms of personalisation, number of fans you can have, etc., so I'd always go with the latter.

Mr Biz

Some interesting reading here www.socialnomics.net

Has anyone noticed that FB's CPC charge for advertising has increased dramatically in recent months?

writhen

PaulPinnacle wrote: »

The former is in breach of FB's T&C's. That said, many have done it and very few seem to have had any problems with it, it's just a risk I wouldn't be willing to take.

A page also gives a lot more freedom in terms of personalisation, number of fans you can have, etc., so I'd always go with the latter.

Thanks.

mneylon

helen.courtney wrote: »

Hi everyone, just the flip side of this, has anyone had a bad experience using SNS, and has it had an impact on your business. Perhaps, somneone posting poor reviews or comments, and how have you reacted to it, positively/negatively..??

You're going to get negative comments / reviews at some point. It doesn't matter how big your business is. It doesn't matter how good you might be at doing whatever it is you do.

How you handle it, however, is the key.

If you ignore it it probably won't go away.
If you handle it professionally and in a courteous manner you can turn it around.

Put it this way - with social media you can see the negative comments, so you know what people aren't happy about. That gives you a chance to address the issues.

You might not have been able to do so as easily in the past ..