The Social Media Marketer

5 Ways To Build Your Business' Social Media Identity

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Social media business marketing is a large, and very important, part of doing business in today’s market. You need to establish your brand, get connected, be authentic, participate, and monitor your social media activity.

Here are five tips to help you build your business’ social media identity.

Secure Your Brand:

• Take control of your brand everywhere possible; even if you don’t plan to use that particular outlet of social media business marketing. It is a smarter business move to control a username and never use it; than to have someone else take your brand name and use it for their own purposes. You want to have control of your brand identity all over the Internet.    

• Establish an easily remember (or deduced) social media username. Your user name will identify who you are, what you have to offer, and your motive for being part of the social media. Use the same name everywhere. A consistent username will help to establish trust and familiarity. Even slight variations in a social media username can confuse potential customers.      

• The idea of taking control of your particular username on every possible social media site can be overwhelming. We recommend using Knowem to search numerous social media sites at once.

Connect and Reconnect:

• Increase the effectiveness of your social media business marketing by consistently adding links connecting your primary website or other social media sites.     

• This connection will allow consumers to verify you are who you claim to be. You should also add links on your social media sites to your primary website.

• You create trust, credibility, and familiarity by connecting and reconnecting to websites and social media sites displaying your brand. This will also increase a consumer’s exposure to your product or service.

Be Authentic:

• Share the identity of the “real” person behind your social media business marketing. On each site provide the name and title of that person; we suggest you include a photo.

• If you include guest blogs or articles, include this person’s photograph and a short biography.

• Build your social media content to make potential customers interested in your business. Determine your business’ story, make it as interesting and enticing as possible, and share it across the social media. You want consumers to be so intrigued they want to share your story with others. Caution: Do not make up or overly embellish your story.

Participate:

• Establish and stick to a schedule to share information through your social media sites. Be consistent, be interesting, and never lecture. With a regular schedule your readers will be eagerly anticipating your next posting. You can share news, articles, white papers, links or advice – but stick to a schedule.

• Make it possible, and easy, for readers to interact with you on all your social media business marketing sites. Respond to conversations or initiate conversations. Make sure the people you are interacting with know who they are conversing with and keep your conversation friendly and non-threatening.

• Provide additional source links for more in-depth information. (Of course, this will be another of your business’ websites or blog sites.) You may also want to provide links to other experts or companies who can provide additional content – as long as they return the favor by providing links to your expert commentaries.

• Do not overly promote your business and your product or service. Your initial purpose with social media business marketing is to create trust and familiarity. This will naturally lead to consumers wanting what you have to offer.

Follow-up, Respond and Monitor:

• Depending on which social media site is involved, ask people to connect by linking, following or liking. Ask these people to share your information with others who might be interested.

• When you identify a strong follower, you should follow them and possibly follow the people they are following. This may provide resources you were previously unaware existed.

• Conduct searches on topics relevant to your business and your social media business marketing. Follow and participate in the discussions. You can set up continuous searches through programs such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite.    

• You can add your business to directories under specific topics through Wefollow or similar directories.  

• Based on your business’ name, create news and blog alerts to receive immediate email each time something is published mentioning your business. Search on Google, Twitter, and Technorati.

• Also, watch for and participate in discussions regarding your business by signing up on Get Satisfaction.

Social media business marketing can be a highly-effective method for building your business. Use the tips above to make your social media presence more efficient.