As many marketers know, word of mouth is a powerful form of marketing. Personal recommendation has been shown to be the most influential medium because we trust our closest friends and acquaintances. This trust means that we are powerfully influenced by their recommendations or advice. Word of mouth also encourages the spread of you brand, product or service like a virus, one person tells his friends who then passes on the recommendation to their social circle and so on. So if so many marketers except the power that Word of Mouth has, why are they still reluctant to embrace Social Media?

Social Media has been seen to be a more powerful version of word of mouth. Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow users to share their experiences of brands and services quickly and easily. The fact that Social Media has recently gone mobile has made this sharing more instant; people can share information as they are having either a positive or negative experience. The other benefit of sharing experiences via Social Media is the size of the Social networks consumers have online. The average size of a users network on Facebook is around 200. The size of this network is far greater then someone spreading experiences via traditional word of mouth.

Many people think that platforms like Twitter and Social Media are full of hot air and pointless information with people talking about the weather and what not. However consider the fact that every one in five tweets mentions a brand, product or service. People are using social media as way of discussing, promoting and recommending their favourite brands and products.

So if you pride yourself on the fact that Word of Mouth is your number one form of marketing, maybe this article will help you re-think about using Social Media. Social Media is an online form of communication which incorporates all the aspects of Word of Mouth and amplifies it. Even if you don’t have any Social Media accounts it doesn’t mean that people aren’t already talking about you online.

If you need any help or advice on starting a Social Media campaign or enhancing your existing Social Media please feel free to get in contact. Generate UK help create and manage a range of different clients Social campaigns as well as also offering training to help your employees effectively use Social Media.

If you would like to further discuss how Social media can help you and your business please email us.
We also have a white paper on Social Media which is available to download for free here.

The three main reasons we find why people do not use Twitter are:
1.    They don’t know how to use it
2.    It sounds silly and they don’t understand the concept
3.    They don’t think anyone in their organisation will have time to use it or embrace it

The concept of Twitter is simple, it’s a place to chat, share information, check the latest news, let people know what you’re doing, highlight latest achievements, promotions and to demonstrate why people should come and talk to you. If you think about Twitter from a ‘business perspective’, this is what most businesses are trying to achieve every day.  Twitter represents a great online vehicle to be able to build a community and reach out with a click of a button.

The trick to Twitter is to work out the best ways to maximise its potential and to integrate it into your everyday business processes. Once you have a number of followers you can communicate to an audience on an instantaneous basis and you’ll wonder why you didn’t start tweeting earlier!

Below is a whistle stop tour of how and why Twitter should be used as a Marketing tool.

Why consider Twitter?
A few quick reasons why you should seriously think about Twitter:
1.    The sheer volume of users - Twitter has over 75 million users you could connect with
2.    Its speed - Twitter is a real time social media platform
3.    Networking facilitation - The ability to network with people and companies within the same industry as you
4.    Mobile Marketing usage - Twitter is accessible on mobile phones meaning you get your message to them at all times

Use it to increase your traffic.
Twitter is a great way to drive traffic to your website.  Twitter is a fantastic environment to make people aware of your brand, share their thoughts, understand your products and services which in turn will drive targeted traffic. You can constantly update, change and post new services and products you offer and drive those who are interested to your website through promotions and quality literature. If you are aware of link building, then twitter provides a very strong reputable link for your site, if you are not aware of link building please have a quick read of our older posts link building.

Increase your reputation.
Twitter is a platform where you as a business can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise to a large audience. By posting interesting tweets, posting links to news articles and even links to your blog, you can show your target audience as well as other businesses in your industry that you know what you’re talking about and that you’re an expert in your field, increasing your reputation online.

Live News Feed.
Twitter is a real time social media platform. So what does this mean? This means that every tweet is immediately posted to your followers. This means that you can get your company’s news into the public eye in a matter of seconds. It has recently been seen that large news stories have been posted on Twitter before reaching respectable news sites such as the BBC. This means instead of having to plan weeks in advance to for you to appear in magazines and papers through press releases, product reviews or feature articles, through Twitter you can post immediately to access customer reaction and feedback.

Networking.
Twitter also has a sophisticated networking facility. This means that you can directly communicate with other businesses or suppliers. You’ll find that a lot of people have a business Twitter account as well as a personal one, giving you the opportunity to directly communicate with CEO’s or Directors of companies. This also means that people will be able to contact you. A business searching for related services can read your profile then message you to register their interest.

These are but only a few reasons of how and why twitter can be a powerful marketing tool. In 2010 it has almost become a necessity for a business to be on twitter, but it’s up to you as a business to maximise the opportunities the platform offers.

I did however go to a seminar today on this very subject that did exactly that! No the room wasn’t full of ‘grandmas’, but it did break down the mysterious lore that is social media and online marketing into easily digested nuggets of knowledge.
This seminar was hosted by Generate UK at the spectacular Donnington Grove in their ‘Cloud Suite’. The ‘Cloud Suite’ is a luxurious room lined with lovely old paintings, overshadowed by a fantastic painted ceiling. There was free tea and coffee, there was glorious sunshine and there was a friendly buzz as attendees began to arrive.

We were all seated in some rather fancy chairs and we covered a variety of things from e-marketing myth busting to the fundamentals of the ‘twitterverse’. I already knew some of the basics that were covered but it was nice to see that all the fundamentals were explained so that everyone else understood the more advanced things that were to follow. Overall it was very well presented and it left no one guessing.

Over the course of the morning I mentally noted a number of clever marketing devices for later use. I learned that no more are the days where one could simply post a few thousand identical links all over the Internet to rank their page from ‘unheard of’ to ‘the industry authority’ in a matter of weeks; nor can you purchase links on leading websites to boost your own rankings… Well, not without major repercussions anyway. The emphasis nowadays is on natural link building, quality and content with a hint of tweeting; although the ‘Tweeting’ is optional.

Natural link building is the activity that promotes the recommendation of your online presence by getting other online entities to refer to your site naturally via a link; this could be as a point of interest, or perhaps in the form of a recommendation of your products or services. This is done of their own accord. This is now necessary because the search engines have ‘wizened-up’ to those manipulative chaps that have previously gone out to the marketplace to spam every existing website with their own links and false recommendations; all in a bid to rank higher on the search engine results. The current digital marketing paradigm now dictates that it is better for a company ‘footprint’ to grow gradually over time as more and more web users begin to trust the site in question and recognise it as an authority in the field.  For those of you that didn’t know, an online footprint is the measurement of your own online presence size… Yet another vital thing I learned today that I have lovingly passed on to you.

Now, can you tell me of something currently going on in your life or workplace that you’ve told other people about? I bet you can. Yet, many companies with an online presence clam-up and communicate next to nothing. If you have some experience in a particular field, enough for you to generate money from, it must be worth shouting about surely?
This is where we come on to the subject of quality and content. I learned today that some companies are beginning to embrace this as a guideline for their online activity. Not too many years ago the majority of companies had a static website that was occasionally updated with some generic company news. Nowadays however, the early adopters of new digital marketing methods and technology are beginning to share their knowledge, views and information online. This interactivity allows users to communicate with the company in a dynamic fashion allowing the aforementioned businesses to stay firmly on the industry pulse; this is due to their grass roots interaction with the end consumer, so businesses are more aware of what these consumers are thinking right now.

How is this done? In a surprisingly simple way actually, it’s all a question of sharing targeted, interesting and relevant content with the web surfers you want to attract to your business.  This does require that you embrace some of the new social media platforms that have recently come to power though i.e. Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us etc. So although the process may seem straight forward, there is a significant learning curve involved which puts many companies off.
Let me give you an example. Imagine you and I run a fashion outlet for customised clothing and accessories. We could do our traditional market research, develop prototype designs and then hope that when these items finally go on sale they will indeed, sell. This is admittedly, a very short-sighted example but now imagine this; instead of doing our in-house research with a few participants… We opened up a website listing all of our latest designs. We could then use a platform like Twitter to ‘Tweet’ (post information about) those designs to the masses whilst linking back to the main site. This would then open the door to other ‘Twitterers’ (Twitter users) for them to offer valuable feedback on our designs and to perhaps make some valuable recommendations for change. Not only that, but by engaging with the fashion conscious community on Twitter, we could explore what other people in the field are talking about and then throw in our own ‘two cents’ on the subject. We have just outlined a way to improve our customer interaction, improve our market research and product design process as well as establish ourselves as an authority in the field of fashion by expressing our expert opinion in up-to-the-minute conversations on the subject; all the while building natural links and generating traffic to our sales website, hopefully earning some extra money. Of course such a strategy would require much more thought and planning, but such a scenario is not uncommon where clever individuals have managed to leverage this powerful technology to their own business benefit.

The basics however are centred on sharing relevant, quality content with other users in an engaging way so that these users will interact with your business. Got a new product line? Tweet it. Planning a big PR event? Set up an events page on Facebook. Little things like this as part of a wider marketing plan can really level the playing field when competing for business against larger faceless corporations. Consumers like to know there is a bit of humanity in the business workings somewhere, something they can relate to. This is what makes quality content sharing on these innovative platforms so damned powerful.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. So called because it allows you to send mini updates (about whatever you want) to your followers. You basically set yourself up as a user and woke up and I need coffee” (which begs the question about what is more important; Twitter or coffee) to general chit chat.

Is there a business benefit to Twitter?

As a digital agency, we’re often asked about the benefits of social media, and it is fair to say that it is not always clear at first glance. However, with Twitter we’ve identified quite a few uses for it.

• It’s a great way to interact with likeminded people, which is always handy. For example, we were recently let down at the last minute by one of our speakers at a seminar we were running. We posted on Twitter for a replacement and had six companies respond, all of whom would have done a great job.
• It’s a good way to get a heads up on new techniques and ideas. A lot of people use Twitter to share useful web sites. Sometimes these web sites turn out to be great resources, so it is a perfect way to stay informed without spending huge amounts of time researching.
• If you’ve not bought into the business benefits of blogging; then we’re not reaching you properly. From our perspective, we cannot think of many reasons why a business would not have a blog, there’s many reasons for this covered here. Micro-blogging is an extension of this and all of the benefits are the same.
• It’s simple to interact with Twitter via your mobile phone. In fact as one recent amateur photographer recently found out, it’s possible to become world famous in a matter of minutes. With this type of pulling power, the potential of Twitter is unlimited.
• If you are in a business where from time to time you have spare capacity such as hotels, restaurants, cinemas etc; then it is possible to use Twitter to communicate special offers and promotions to your followers. Twitter users are very active and conversion rates are extremely high for companies using this type of marketing.
• If you’re a larger organisation with a brand, you may find that you need to keep an eye on how your brand is represented online. If people are Tweeting about you, then you may as well Tweet about yourself and control the conversations. Otherwise, you should follow Tweetscan to see what is linked to your name/brand. As you can see, even Tesco is getting in on the act.
• We’ve already mentioned that Twitter is great for networking with likeminded people; if you take this to the next level, it is also a great way to reach out to them. Perhaps you’re looking for specialist technical skills? Need a quote for some printing? Or would like to post a link to a new position at your company? It’s all possible with Twitter.

I’m sure as more people begin to use Twitter; the business opportunities will grow. If you would like to Tweet with Generate UK, you’re more than welcome to follow us on Twitter also. We’re looking forward to your tweets.

Was this post helpful? Do you already use Twitter for your business, would you like to share your comments below? If you or your company would like to discuss social media, using Twitter or digital marketing in general, please call us on 01635 550431.

As a business, we speak about social media and the different facets of social media every day. Sometimes we raise the topic with clients because we see an opportunity for them to use social media to boost their traffic, or because a customer has raised the topic with us and they’re looking to learn more about the subject.

What we’ve learned is that many businesses in the UK are completely turned off by the phrase “Social Media”. Despite the phrase being around for a while now, it still has that connection to the consumer market; it’s still thought of as that “Myface” (sic) site where youngsters post their pictures of drunken nights out.

So this blog post is about exploring some of the more popular reasons we hear from businesses in the UK about why they are not adopting social media and what we think in return. There’s an opportunity for you to post your comments at the end.

• The bad press that has surrounded some of the larger social media sites can mean that some businesses are put off from even exploring the possibility for their company. Interestingly, these are the easiest to turn around as it is a case of realigning what social media for business is and where the benefits and the risks lay.
• The time aspect is often raised in relation to how long it can take to understand the different elements of social media, how long it takes to create content or indeed the time it takes just to take part in a community. In our opinion, this is not a good reason for not exploring social media. You should look at which facets have more resonance with your business, stick to these and do these well. The end game is to create more online discussions which will lead to more qualified customers knowing your brand and visiting your site, which hopefully will lead to more business, so it’s worth the effort.
• It’s not secure is something that we hear quite regularly. This is interesting as when you dig deeper into this subject, it’s obvious that this is a perception challenge. There have been some very alarming news stories about identity theft; however it comes down to using best practices and never giving more information away than is necessary.
• We’re worried about our brand is one of the concerns about social media that we agree with. It is absolutely paramount that you’re in control of the messaging and content that is being used and being associated with your business. This is why many of the larger US brands have adopted social media strategies that mean that all content and information they release is approved by them. The thought process here is that social media and online PR is not going to go away, therefore it is better to control what is being used rather than be controlled by it.
• It’s just a fad, is something that we hear quite a lot. In some ways, we can understand this; the hot new social media site of yesterday is often a baron waste land tomorrow. So why bother taking the time trying to keep up with what’s hot and what’s not? The trick here is to use the sites that are relevant to your market and your message. Try to use sites where a community already exists, if you prefer to build your own community be in it for the long haul.
• I just don’t get it and have no idea what social media actually is. Let us try to simplify it for you; Social Media is about online communications. Internet users have been communicating online since the mid nineties; it just was not called social media then. Social media for businesses is about using social media to enhance your brand, increase the number of conversations about your business and to drive targeted visitors to your site. This is in exchange for your business adding value and sharing their experience via a social media platform such as blogging or forums.
• What’s the value for us as a business? This is a great conversation to be involved with as this what it is all about. If someone could demonstrate the business benefits of taking part in social media, would you do it? If someone could walk you through a social media strategy and show you how to build your brand awareness, would you do it? The answer is probably yes if that new business is worth more than the cost of learning. The great thing about Internet marketing is that it is very measurable, so you should quickly be able to measure your return on investment.
• It’s just something for the youngsters, is something that we hear a lot. It’s probably a fair conclusion as well, however social media is a platform that the youngsters choose to communicate and receive their information on. Therefore, if this is a market that you want to sell to or take part in, then you must take the time to understand the medium. The ways that we communicate changes, 20 years ago there were no Internet and no mobile phones (barely) and look at how these two technologies have changed the way we do business.
• How do we manage the content? This is a concern usually raised by companies that are concerned with employees publishing rude, racist or abusive comments and are worried that posts of this nature will reflect on the business. This is a very important concern, however not one that should put you off moving forward with social media. Internal policies and guidelines are very important and making sure your staff are aware of their responsibilities will help you.
• The boss won’t allow us to use it is a very popular reason we hear from companies. This is about perception and probably one or two of the reasons we have already discussed. In our experience, a well articulated business plan that covers the benefits as well as how you plan to cope with the concerns is a good way to changes people’s minds. Most bosses are keen to increase their profits and revenues, if you can align your social media objectives with this, you should be ok. 

What do you think? Is our list accurate or are we doing UK businesses a disservice? We’d be keen to hear your feedback and comments, either use the form below or you can visit our contact us form. If you would like to discuss your social media requirements with Generate UK, quote the title of this post to lock in a 20% discount against your first purchase.

One of the more recent combinations of the personal and professional is the use of online social networking communities. You may be aware of social networking communities already, but do you have any idea of their potential for marketing your business?  Here’s a brief introduction to the concept of Social Media Optimisation (SMO) and how it could work for you…

What is social networking?

Social networking is the use of online communities such as Myspace, Bebo and Facebook to connect and communicate with people around the world.  Its advantages to businesses include tapping into new markets and generating new business.  Promoting your company across a number of these networks is known as Social Media Optimisation (SMO).

How does Social Media Optimisation work?

Social Media Optimisation can be thought of as a trail of breadcrumbs that leads visitors to your main website. External profiles introduce your company to the members of these online communities and advertise your products and services. Think of it as the next generation of directory listings: members are attracted to your profile by its content, and then pointed in the direction of your website.

Can it help me with my Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

The short answer is YES. Most social networking communities register their members’ profiles with the main search engines. The longer answer is that it depends on which networks you are a part of: different communities have different success rates with SEO. Each community does, however, have its own search engines, and your profile is optimised primarily for these.

What other ways are there of attracting profile hits?

Most of the communities promote profiles that are regularly updated, and members mark interesting content for other members’ viewing. Regularly uploading fresh and interesting content to your profile will give it a greater chance of being noticed.  An effective way of generating interest is to use your profile as the springboard for an online viral campaign. Pictures and movie clips are shared between members, so an advert could potentially reach millions via platforms such as YouTube and MyspaceTV.

Do I have to pay every time someone views my advert?

No.  Although some communities offer pay-per-click advertising services, it doesn’t cost anything for a movie to spread throughout its members. Providing your advert has interesting content it could be viewed all over the world without you paying anything for global distribution!

I’m interested, but I don’t have the time to manage all these profiles…

We can do that for you - we’ll set up the profile and design it to compliment your company branding. We can even provide you with video content if you don’t already have your own! For a minimum of twelve months we’ll maintain the channel for you, updating any news and uploading media at your request. We’ll also keep your channel clean of spam, block unwanted visitors and provide monthly statistics depending on which community you choose.

What next?

This is a guest blog post by Daniel Lyddon who is Creative Director at Seraphim Pictures.

Seraphim Pictures is an independent film and television production partnership based in Wales, UK.  A fusion of the partners’ combined experience in production and acting, the Company commits itself to developing content that showcases contemporary British talent and culture.

If you would like to learn more about how the Generate UK/Seraphim Pictures partnership can deliver and market unique video solutions to your business, please visit the Seraphim website or contact them via email or call them on +44 (0) 7531 614 569.

Before reading this post, we recommend that you get Generate UK - Digital Marketing Blog delivered directly to your email inbox

All this week, we have been posting about Social Media and how it can help your business. During discussions with our clients, it was clear that there were different views about what Social Media actually was. One of the more common views we hear from our customers is that they see Social Media as a tool for young people to share photos of themselves falling out of nightclubs.

Faced with this feedback and the general media coverage, it is not difficult to see why many businesses are struggling with how Social Media might help them. Hopefully, over the course of this week we have planted one or two seeds of opportunity. If you still need convincing, we’ve added some more business benefits below:

1. More conversations about your brand. Our Social Media Strategies are about increasing the number of online conversations there are about your products and services. The trick to this is to make sure these conversations are happening where your customers are most likely to be. We use a phrase called Internet Footprint, the larger your footprint the better and the different facets of Social Media help with this.

2. Traffic booster. Using video sharing techniques or social news sites, there is always the potential for you to go viral. If this happens, it is time to hang onto your hat because you are likely to experience the type of traffic that you have never had in the past. Just make sure your bandwidth is ready and your landing pages are converting.

3. It’s new and a bit different. This benefit is not always going to be true, however for the time being it is a little bit different. There’s growing concern about our so called “ad blindness”, where we are beginning to sub-consciously block out on page advertisements. Social Media Networking is a way around this.

4. Comparably low costs. A Social Media Marketing Plan, can be a very cost affective way to build your brand and company awareness. Using this form of marketing is also more measurable, so you will be able to see whether you are taking the right message to market very quickly.

5. Great tool for search engine optimisation. Whilst you should never take part in Social Media Networking just for SEO purposes, it is a very agreeable additional benefit. Social Media increases your Internet Footprint, which in turn means that you have the potential to be found in more places.

6. Instant customer feedback. A number of companies use Social Media as a way to encourage their customers to provide feedback about their service. If you’re offering great service and have lots of happy customers, then this is a great marketing opportunity for you.

7. Support you existing marketing activities. The very nature of Social Media Networking is that it is a dialogue that is happening online. Many successful above the line marketing campaigns have taken full advantage of this by encouraging people to use their Social Media platforms, giving them instant access to their customer base.

8. Become a leader. We’ve covered blogs in detail before, however it is worth reiterating. Using blogs to support your business is a great way to demonstrate your leadership and expertise within your market.

What to do now? You are more than welcome to post your comments regarding this post, perhaps you can help us add to the list? Alternatively, if you would like to speak to Generate UK, please do not hesitate to call us on 0845 388 9185 or via our contact us page.

Like all forms of marketing, the more planning you put into it the more successful it will be; this is no different when you’re starting out with Social Media. There is a huge amount of choice, different sites have different user demographies, some are niche focused, some more general. With more ways to communicate online springing up every day, it can be very confusing and not surprising that many businesses have no idea where to begin, and for this reason alone often don’t.

This is why we ask our clients what it is that they are trying to achieve from Social Media. It’s an important question and the more detailed and targeted your answer is, the more benefit you will be able to gain from Social Media. This is because it will help determine where your Social Media activities should be; for example if you’re looking to network with other marketing people, Myspace is probably not the best place for you.

Types of Social Media Platforms that Businesses Can Use

This post expands on the one from yesterday and goes into more detail about the different areas of Social Media and what they might mean for your business. In tomorrows post we will talk more about your user profile and why this is important.

Social Networking Platforms

These are the larger sites that attract huge amounts of traffic. These types of sites can be very useful from a networking perspective, especially the likes of LinkedIn. There are also industry focused sites that cater for different sectors and smaller niches, they are a great way to keep up to speed with trends within your market. If you use these platforms correctly, they could lead onto other networking opportunities such as invitations to speak at events or interviews with press. Creating the right type of profile is very important, as is balancing the time you put into the platform.

There are a number of sites (Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn Answers) that are used by people for research purposes or to ask advice. This is a nice way to contribute to a Social Media Platform as it adds to your expertise reputation. It is great to be associated with helping people and creating an Internet Footprint of your company being helpful is not a bad thing.

Blogging

We’ve already posted in detail about the business benefits of blogs, suffice to say there are plenty. If you currently have a web site and are not taking advantage of a blog, then you are missing out on targeted traffic and a whole host of other benefits.

Microblogging

Microblogging via sites such as Twitter is growing in popularity. These platforms offer a service where you can post a “small communication” (less than 140 characters) to your customers and subscribers. If used correctly, there is nothing wrong with you carefully pushing your products and services, although you should definitely not over do it. You might also consider using Microblogging as a way to build your brand and be in contact with your customers.

Forums

Forums are a great way to grow your online reputation and brand. Businesses have the choice of either running their own forum or contributing to others. Both are ways to communicate with your customers, talk about your products and services and demonstrate your expertise. We have seen some incredibly successful forum development strategies that delivered a massive growth in target traffic and high conversions.

Video Sharing

The behemoth video sharing site that we’re all aware of is YouTube. There are others, however they do pale into insignificance when compared with youTube. This is because of the incredible reach they have, which if used correctly can be hugely beneficial to your business. For tutorials, product information and tips; video sharing is something that your users will start to demand in the next 12 months.

Photo Sharing

Similar to video sharing; photo sharing can be an important part of your Social Media strategy. They are used more for driving traffic and interest. If you’re running regular seminars or events, posting the photos and videos afterwards is a great way to encourage your attendees to come back and visit you again. The trick is to make sure that as well as the photos, they are seeing a call to action they can not refuse.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is when your visitors bookmark and share the details of your web page with other members of their community. This can sometimes lead to one of your web pages going “viral”, which means that many people have began to share it, which results in a huge increase in traffic. The trick to social bookmarking is to make it as easy as possible for your visitors to share the details of your pages.

Social News

Posting your news and press releases to established Social News sites introduces your story to a new audience. It also has the opportunity to grow as a story, since the community will be able to post and comment on your news. Well written Social News pieces have the potential to be massive traffic generators, as well as an important way to build your Internet Footprint.

What to do now? You are more than welcome to post your comments regarding this post. Alternatively, if you would like to speak to Generate UK, please do not hesitate to call us on 0845 388 9185 or via our contact us page.

This can be a time consuming affair because it is very important that you get it right. Remember that this is how you are representing your company on the Internet, this is about complimenting and improving your online brand, not damaging it.

The objective with your online profile should be to encourage people to want to find out more about you and/or to click through to your main website. Below are a few tips that will help you:

1. Decide on who you are. This may sound strange, however it is something to think about. If you are representing your company, you will be building an Internet Footprint. Whatever you say or contribute to will be there for all to see. There’s no right or wrong answer here and we would never encourage anyone to falsely represent themselves.

2. Choose your name. Decide upon a memorable name that you would like to be known as within the community. If you are there as your company, you might decide to choose your company name, which is a great way to improve your brand (as long as your contribution to the community is good).

3. Complete your profile. So often people will join a community in order to leverage it for more traffic and interest, yet they fail to complete their profile. This is your chance to differentiate yourself, so spend some time on your profile and use it as your shop window.

4. Choose an Avatar. Don’t just go along with the default avatar, put some time into it and create something unique. People will make a judgement about your profile based upon your avatar, so it is worth showing that you are serious about the community. Make sure that you test your avatar in different sizes as some Social Media Platforms present your avatar differently.

5. Do or don’t include your website details. Typically, if there is a place to put a link to your web site, it makes sense to take advantage of it. In the majority of Social Media sites, this is still the case, however not always. Some sites you will want to make a call on whether you should actively push your site or not. The general rule of thumb is to consider what benefit it adds to the network and what the other established members are doing.

6. Learn about the community. Take the necessary time to read up on the terms of services, read through the posting guidelines and establish what the senior members are contributing. If you rush in, you will not make the most of the opportunity.

7. Take part in the community. The hardest thing of all in terms of Social Media Networking is doing something for nothing. It is really important to appreciate this, a community has the right to make a judgement. If you’re seen to only push your products and services, then you will be seen as adding no value to the community. Try to schedule some giving time.

8. Present yourself well. If you’re representing your business, take care to ensure that your spelling and grammar is up to scratch. Don’t get involved in any debate or arguments that you would not be happy for them to be found in a search engine.

9. Be natural. The objective is to use Social Media to drive new sales opportunities and create new contacts that might be good for business. So take care to be natural when you’re contributing, have some fun and enjoy the experience and this will come across a lot better than if you’re forcing yourself to post.

10. Don’t be a spammy user. This is probably number one in terms of what not to do if you are considering using Social Media Networking. If you’re posting spam or seen to be only contributing in order to sing your own praises, then you will be called out. Try to make it your policy that you only mention a product or service as post of an answer to a question.

What to do now? You are more than welcome to post your comments regarding this post. Alternatively, if you would like to speak to Generate UK, please do not hesitate to call us on 0845 388 9185 or via our contact us page.