Personal Branding for Startup Founders – A Practical Guide

Did you know that the “About Us” section is the second most viewed page after the home page for most of the websites? Today, when a lot is being talked about creating the company brand and image, it is equally important to have a strong personal brand of the founders – this is especially true for startups because for many startups, the founders, CEOs and the people behind the company are more known than the company itself.

Think of Apple. Think of Microsoft. Think of Google. Although these are large organizations, there are some strong personalities which come to our mind when we think of these companies – Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. We don’t ‘live’ in a virtual world – we live in a world where we speak with humans, we build relationships with people and we engage with people. So it is very important that founders think of their personal branding very seriously.

“But how do I go about it?” – I get it asked many times. So rather than preaching more about why it is important (I am hoping that you are already convinced!), here are some practical ways of leveraging some of the popular social media platforms for building your personal brand.

LinkedIn

If you have to choose one platform, choose LinkedIn. It is THE most important professional networking platform. First and foremost, it is crucial that you have a well-developed LinkedIn profile. It should very crisply and clearly list your education, experience, expertise, passions and likings. There are lot of articles available online on how to create a powerful LinkedIn profile, the do’s and don’ts and best practices. Follow the advice there. If you think you don’t have time or expertise to write a killer LinkedIn profile, take external help – but do it. It’s mandatory.

You cannot stop after creating a LinkedIn profile. You should aim for following

-          Post at least one status update every week – this could be about your company, your offerings, an interesting insight, your views about industry updates and so on. This is important for being in front of your connections.

-          Join relevant groups which interest you and start getting active there through participation in ongoing discussions.

-          Occasionally, start ask thought provoking questions and elicit responses.

-          Leverage LinkedIn Publisher platform - It allows you to write long updates or articles. You can use this platform to demonstrate your expertise or knowledge.

Twitter

No, Twitter is not for kids or for people who don’t have any work. Twitter is gaining popularity and is being used as a prime network, even in B2B segment, for news, updates and information sharing. It’s a myth that Twitter is time consuming. You don’t need to have Twitter app in ‘always on’ mode on your smartphone. There are schedulers such as Bufferapp or Hootsuite which you can use to schedule your tweets. You can choose to share interesting industry updates, your opinions on latest topics, news about your company products or services. You could also appreciate your employees and motivate them. You can join ongoing conversations through hashtags. It is easy to create an image of a curator of interesting information or opinion-maker on Twitter. Don’t hesitate to show your personal side by way of some casual updates about your vacation or personal interests like
photography, poetry or sports.

Blog

You obviously have lot of knowledge about your industry and domain or technology. Use blogs to share that knowledge and demonstrate your thought leadership or expertise to the world. Based on my personal experience, finalizing the blog topic is the most difficult task. What I do is, pick up the pain points of my customers and write a purely educational post around that. Try it, and it might work for you as well. Don’t try to sell your product or services through your blogs. Genuinely solve people’s problems or provide answers to their questions. A blog written in a simple language which honestly provides relevant and useful information is always appreciated. If your customers approach you after reading your blog, they will approach you as knowledge partner and not as just another vendor.

Pinterest

Yes! Don’t be surprised to see it listed here. Pinterest can very well be used for personal branding – here is how. Suppose you run an exclusive boutique or a cafe, there is no better place than Pinterest to showcase your passion, products and services.  It’s very visual, the interface is very cool and most likely, and your target audience is already on Pinterest! You could also pin other interesting stuff like your office photos, customer testimonials, the books you like, your favorite vacation spots - flaunt your creative side and pin about your passions. There is no harm in showcasing your personal interest on social networking sites.

Quora

If your knowledge of Quora is limited to the email notifications you receive when someone “follows” you there, then it’s time to change it. Quora is a brilliant platform for personal brand building. It is increasingly becoming popular and it seems to be favored by search engines too! Lot of discussions (yes, serious discussions) happen on Quora. Since it is a question and answer format, if you have a point of view about something or have some good pointers to share, there is no better place than Quora. Join interesting conversations and respond to questions. Occasionally, your responses could be supplemented with the blog articles which you have written – I have seen examples where people have seen a steady flow of traffic to their blog coming from Quora.

As we know, Personal Branding is nothing but creating a right kind of emotional response when people hear your name, see you online or meet you in person. Ensure that they find consistency everywhere J Always make sure that your offline persona matches with your online image.

Getting beyond “ROI” to Measure the True Benefits of Social Media

According to a recent survey conducted by Decipher on behalf of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association, 70% of the markets anticipate that in the year 2014, their companies will increase social media spending.

Social media is no more an option today. It solely is a matter of how effectively and creatively brands adapt this medium. Yes, it is very powerful and at the same time, it’s very tricky – I am saying tricky because social media marketing is becoming more and more complex. Everyone is talking social, every online website wants “social integration”, the number of social platforms is growing, social is within the reach of every smartphone holder, there is tons of data and there are hundreds of metrics to track. 

Brands have been spending on marketing since ages and understand the power of ‘being in front of’ the target audience and grabbing the eye balls. I believe what adds a little complexity in social media is the fact that there are certain aspects like clicks, visits to the websites, fans, followers etc., which can be very easily quantified and therefore there is always a temptation to link “RoI” with these quantifiable aspects and completely miss out on other qualitative aspects.

“What do you want to measure the “social” or the “media” --- says David Alston of Radian6. Doesn’t it make you think about the true definition of RoI when it comes to social media? It definitely should - because the “Media” aspect is quantitative and “Social” aspect is qualitative.

Let me try and explain what I mean by this. Quantitative RoI means anything which can be measured in numbers – such as Number of visits to your site, number of leads, Increase in sales/ revenue, number of fans, followers, RTs, shares etc. Qualitative RoI is something which has very high qualitative value associated with it but it is hard measure it in number – this could include things like Interactions, Feedback, Loyalty, Trust, Passion or Brand Awareness.

Here are some of the examples of brands deriving qualitative and quantitative RoI through social media.

QUANTITATIVE RoI:

• Southwest Airlines: Southwest Airlines attributes more than $1 million in additional ticket sales to its presence on Twitter
• Marriott: Marriott has made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott's blog.
• Dell: Dell Outlet made more than $6.5M sale through its Twitter presence.
• Lenovo: Lenovo attributed a 20% reduction in call center activity to use of a community website for answers
• Naked Pizza: 68.60% of total dollar sales came from customers who said they are “calling from Twitter”
• Blendtec: Increased sales 5x by running the humorous "Will it Blend" Videos on YouTube.
• AT&T Community: 21,000 customer queries were resolved through the community tremendous reduction in call volume
• IBM: The developerWorks community saves $100 million annually with people connecting on the community instead of contacting IBM support.
• Accenture:  Accenture is believed to have saved thousands of dollars per executive by using LinkedIn for recruitment instead of headhunters. 

QUALITATIVE RoI:

• Starbucks: Generated lot of new product ideas by asking users what want from Starbucks.
• Oracle: Trained 25,000 partners using social media which in turn not only reduced the costs but also boosted satisfaction and increased PR.
• TurboTax: The Twitter campaign to respond and answer questions during key tax season established the company as thought leader in the space and found that customers were 71% more likely to recommend TurboTax.
• Kogi Korean BBQ: Uses Twitter to let the customers know where the truck was and when it would be in their neighborhood which built a strong connect with the consumers.
• Home Depot: Appreciates technical support employees on Twitter through tagging (Moral boosting, unique appreciation)

To summarize, here are few things you can remember about social media ROI:

• Quantity is not always the only metric – 5 engaged followers are better than 500 non-active followers
• Quality of interactions is crucial - 1 RT from an influencer can have much better impact than impressions to 1000 inactive ‘accounts’
• Conversation is as important as conversion – Social media offers an opportunity for two-way communication and brands should definitely leverage it for building connections with the target audience
• Negative comments also deliver RoI – provided you act on them in a right fashion. For example: If a brand properly handles negative comments from an irate customer on social media, other connected users automatically have a positive impression about the brand in their mind.
• Advertising cannot tell you consumer sentiment but social media can –use social media for such things and that’s RoI for you!

This article was originally published in afaqs special report on social media. Download the complete report here.

Crisis Management using Social Media – Buffer Case Study

On Saturday, I received an email with subject “Buffer has been hacked – here is what’s going on”. As an ardent Buffer fan and user, my first reaction was “Oh my god. What must have happened to my tweets/ Facebook posts?”. But when I opened the email, I was up for a pleasant surprise. Yes, I am saying a “pleasant surprise”. Here is why:

#1: The email did not beat around the bush but clearly stated the fact that buffer has been hacked and it’s a problem which needs to be handled. At the same time, the language and tone clearly showed that the Buffer team was concerned and apologetic about what happened. While things can go wrong with anyone, finally taking the ownership makes or breaks the deal.

 

  

#2: The email clearly stated what needs to be done next – which is most important.

#3: While the Buffer team was working round the clock for solving the problem, it made sure that team members were posting constant updates on their live blog, Facebook and Twitter. Having worked on software products for a considerable period in my career, I can fully understand how difficult it must be for the team to handle the issues and solve the technical problems. But at the same time, they made sure that they don’t keep the users in dark. I was amazed to see updates almost after every couple of hours.  The frequency of the updates clearly showed that the team was working round the clock over the weekend to take care of this crisis.

#4: Here is what completely amazed and blew me away. I posted a tweet congratulating the buffer team for their excellent crisis management and I got a personalized response. Note that buffer has 145K followers and I can only imagine the flood of mentions it must have got after the hacking incident. Responding to each tweet – that too in a so much personalized manner in incredible!

The personalized signature at the end of the tweet from Buffer team made me look at their “About Us” section to know really who the members are. What increased my respect for the team is the fact that the buffer team is only 13 people and the people who responded to my tweet did not necessarily belong to “marketing” or “social media” department. Belle is the Content Crafter there and Brian is the Designer!  Yet again, a fine example to emphasize the fact that marketing is no more confined to marketing department.

Key takeaways from this:

-          In case of crisis like this, be honest and transparent. Show the concern and at the same time, accept and take complete responsibility

-          Communicate the updates and tell the affected community that you are working on it

-          Social Media is a powerful channel – while you enjoy publishing news and achievements there, it can very well be used in such situations as well  

-          Social media is not ONLY marketing department job. The whole buffer team, right from the CEO to the Designer, all of them were on social channel, responding to queries, feedback and appreciations.

-          Give a personal touch to your social media presence– to be honest, the personalized response to my tweet made me write this blog post!

Have you witnessed any other fine example of crisis management using social media? Share your comments!

Brands Paying Heavy Price for Social Media Insensitivity

Yes, social media undoubtedly offers a great way to brands to connect with the consumers, build emotional rapport and have a more personalized connection with them. And when we talk about emotional connection, it is important that the brands remain sensitive about what they publish on social media.

Here are examples of some social media disasters where brands had to pay a heavy price for being insensitive on social media.

#1: Chipotle Mexican Grill

Recently Chipotle faked its Twitter hack. 

Undoubtedly, it got the attention from public. The number of followers increased – but are they really the people who want to engage with the brand? I doubt. The supposedly hacked tweets got thousands of RTs. But are these creating any value for the brand or for the audience? Not at all!

I firmly believe and continue to reiterate that brands need to look at quality of conversations and engagement through social media – rather than the numbers like followers and RTs only.

I am sure ardent fans of Chipotle certainly did not appreciate this stunt and somewhere the trust was shaken.  

#2:  Volkswagen India

Volkswagen India did a “vibrating newspaper” ad in leading newspapers across India. Indeed an innovation – it became the talk of the Twitter town and blogosphere. Positive and negative comments started pouring in. Volkswagen unfortunately was not prepared to handle the attention.

There were many tweets about the vibrating newspaper not being appreciated. In response to that (probably as a defense), Volkswagen India tweeted “Women would be dumb to call it a vibrator. Or maybe they do not understand real driving experience. #PunIntended #Volkswagen #Creative”.

Obviously such sexist tweet was retweeted many times and received lot of backlashing. Volkswagen deleted the tweet and all the ReTweets. But the following screenshot, taken by Nandita remained and that will continue to remind people about the insensitivity shown by Volkswagen. Yes, Volkswagen responded after more than 3 days that its Twitter handle was compromised and they are looking into it – but is anybody in the mood to listen?

(Via Social Samosa)

Mistakes happen but brands really need to learn handling negative comments on social media. Deleting the tweet or post is NOT an option.

#3: Hyundai

In April 2013, Hyundai released an ad for British market depicting a man attempting suicide by suffocating himself with exhaust fumes inside his Hyundai car. But he fails because the Hyundai ix35 fuel cell car emits only water vapor. 

While the ad makers were patting their backs when The Drum magazine named it as Ad of the Week, something happened - A few days after the ad was released, an advertising copywriter in London posted a blog post in which she posted the suicide note of her father who had committed suicide in exactly the same manner.

The blog post immediately went viral – and the ad became viral for all the wrong reasons. Hyundai did tweet an apology and withdrew the ad. But the copies of the ad were already out on YouTube and other channels. How to handle the crisis is a different story, but I think suicide should not be promoted in advertising in any way. Period.

#4: KFC, Thailand

In April 2012, after an earthquake of 8.5 Richter at the coast of Indonesia, the whole Thailand was watching tsunami warnings and was fearing the worst. At such time, KFC Thailand thought of ‘cashing’ on it and posted on its Facebook wall:

“Let’s hurry home and follow the earthquake news. And don’t forget to order your favorite KFC menu.”

Such insensitive post, on the company Facebook wall, was obviously not appreciated by the people who were associated with the brand on Facebook. When thousands of people lost their lives in Tsunami, all this food chain could think of was its Chicken. Although the post was taken down later on, it had done the damage.

#5: American Apparel

In October 2012, when Sandy Hurricane hit the East Coast of United States and was creating havoc in that part of the country, the leading retailer American Apparel thought that it could cash on this by offering ‘discounts’ to people!

(Via Forbes)

Along with a very ‘helpful map’, American Apparel sent out an email announcing 20% discount for 36 hours for the customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Delaware, New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Unsurprisingly, the Twitterati backlashed it in a big way – to the extent where people announced on Twitter about them boycotting the American Apparel stores. The damage was irreversible. 

Power of Social Collaboration to Create Your Personal Brand

I am super excited to be part of this event happening in Pune on September 7th. Apart from sharing my own learning on using social media tools for building a powerful personal brand, I am more excited to listen to the panelists and learn through the interactions.

When: September 7, 2013 11:00 am to 1:00pm

Where: Persistent Bhageerath, S.B. Road, Pune

Register at: http://powerofsocialcorporate.eventbrite.com/

Come and join us for an exciting Saturday morning!

15 Awesome Social Media Quotes

We all have been hearing a lot about social media marketing. It is no more a buzzword and businesses - small or large - have started adopting it in very creative ways to create engagement, connection and communication with their consumers. 

Presenting here are 15 really excellent quotes about social media which we truly swear by. Have a look! 

#1: We don't have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it – Erik Qualman

#2: Focus on how to be social, not on how to do social. ~ Jay Baer

#3: The beauty of social media is that it will point out your company’s flaws; the key questions is how quickly you address these flaws. -Erik Qualmann, Socialnomics

#4: Social networks aren’t about Web sites. They’re about experiences. -Mike DiLorenzo

#5: Quit counting fans, followers and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you’re hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you’re doing. – Amber Naslund, Social Media Today

#6: The difference between PR and social media is that PR is about positioning, and social media is about becoming, being and improving. – Chris Brogan, author of Trust Agents

#7: Conversations among the members of your marketplace happen whether you like it or not. Good marketing encourages the right sort of conversations. – Seth Godin

#8: The qualities that make Twitter seem insane and half-baked are what makes it so powerful ~ Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law Professor

#9: The problem with trying to determine ROI for Social Media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable. ~ Jason Falls (Social Media Keynote Speaker)

#10: Social marketing eliminates the middlemen, providing brands the unique opportunity to have a direct relationship with their customers. - Bryan Wiener

#11: Saying Hello doesn’t have an ROI. It’s about building relationships. Gary Vaynerchuk

#12: Social media isn’t inexpensive, it’s different expensive. 

#13: This is the most rapidly changing landscape ever–a year ago we did not talk about Pinterest, today it’s third in popularity after Facebook and Twitter.  - Dave Kerpen, CEO, Likeable Media

#14: Social Media puts the “public” into PR and the “market” into marketing. - Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs

#15: Social media doesn’t create negativity, it uncovers it.

Reading these quotes, I thought you might want to read some social media related articles. Below are some of the most read articles on this blog:

1. Handling Negative Comments on Social Media. Read here
2. Social Media ROI – Measuring the Quantitative and Qualitative Results – Read it here
3. Your 10 Most Common Social Media Questions Answered – Read it here
4. Mind Your Facebook Page Etiquettes – Dos and Don’ts – Read the article here
5. Don’t Believe if you Hear This About Social Media – Complete article here

Mind Your Facebook Page Etiquettes – Dos and Don’ts

Here comes another post on managing Facebook brand page. This is a quick and probably already known but not followed list of Dos and Don’ts brand pages on Facebook.

Use this as checklist, if you want :-)

Dos

#1: Form a strategy and tone of the page

The first and foremost thing is to have a tone and strategy for your page. I feel sorry for pages which do not have any tone for the page. For example: If I am following a Book Store page on Facebook, it is absolutely irrelevant for me if the page posts an update about some actor’s birthday or some Fashion Tip (Yes, I have seen this!).

There is no point in being on Facebook just because your social media consultant has asked you to do so. Have a proper plan in mind, understand whom you are going to target through Facebook, what are the likes and dislikes of your target audience, what kind of posts the audience with engage with and what will be relevant for your business. Seems like lot of work? Yes, it indeed is. 

Spend maximum of your time in strategy definition. If your strategy is finely defined, the execution will be easier, more scalable and chances of success will be high.

#2 Pay special attention to time, photo and length

The best time to share on Facebook is noon and a little after 7pm (read more in this post). Go by these guidelines but also keep a close watch on your posts and the engagement you drive through those. You will know the best time which is most suitable for your business.

It is also a known fact that pictures in posts get more engagement –because great visuals grab attention. But yes, select the pictures which are suitable for your post. Do check license agreements of images before using the pictures from search engines.

Do keep an eye on the length of the post. Longer posts (which require clicking on ‘See More’ for complete view) usually get lesser Likes and Comments. Could be that people are busy reading many posts on their Wall and don’t really like clicking on ‘See More’ to check out the complete post. Optimally work your posts to have maximum visual and textual impact.

#3 Provide special incentives and value

Nobody is interesting in joining your page just because you are running a contest with some cool prizes. Well, that can attract people once but those may not be your real target audience with whom you would have deeper engagement or meaningful conversations.

You need to provide real value to your audience for them to be with you on Facebook. The real value can come from some form of incentives which they get only because they are with you on Facebook. Or there should be some value like getting a sneak preview of your products before release, beta program membership, exclusive announcements or some exclusive value-added content.

With too much information overload from various channels, the attention span of people has reduced in general. So you need to be really creative and thoughtful about delivering maximum value to your audience on Facebook.

#4 Get Insights from Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights is a wonderful tool you need to extensively use to understand your target audience (demographics, locations etc), response to your posts and page performance in terms of Likes and Unlikes and the reach of your posts.

The Insights also tell you performance report for each post in terms of the reach, the engagement ratio and interactions. You can use this information to understand the kind of posts the audience engages well with and what is the time when ‘your target audience’ is more available on Facebook. This will also help you in defining the tone of the posts.

Don’ts

#1 Ignore comments/ questions or Delete Posts

There is a general tendency of brands to remove, hide or ignore negative comments on the pages. It is a strict NO-NO. The recent Starbucks India Social Media disaster was a result of post deletion. 

Yes, negative comments spread faster than positive ones, but this does not mean that you should simply ignore or delete those. That will do more harm than good. Respond to negative comments positively and try and resolve the issue. This can be your excellent opportunity to make a good impression in front of the whole community. Here is my other post about handling negative comments on social media.

Lot of times, people post questions on the walls of the brand pages and those are often unanswered. That creates a very bad impression. To me, it clearly shows lack of care from the brand’s side. Many times, brands post canned responses for the questions or comments but they forget that the audience has become very smart and at the same time, very demanding. People now want personalized attention to their problems and genuine resolution.

#2 Scheduled Posts / In-activity During Crucial Time

If you are not active on social media when your audience is, then well, you can’t be on social media. For instance: If you are managing the Facebook brand page of a popular football team and your social media team is not active on Facebook at the time of a crucial match, you have already lost the social media match. Your scheduled posts cannot be work in such cases. Or if you have a product launch planned and your Facebook page or Twitter account does not even announce the launch, then no amount of paid PR will help you in forming connection with your audience.

People connect on social media for interactions, not to get bombarded with scheduled posts. 

#3 Sell! Sell! Sell!

Again, refrain yourself from selling on Facebook. Don’t be desperate and use Facebook as another advertising medium. You have other mediums for advertising – which are meant for that. Facebook is not that. Use it for interactions, engagement, feedback and conversations – all of this which cannot be achieved through your traditional advertising mediums like billboards or TV. 

7 Mistakes Businesses Make on Facebook

I often see so many websites with nice looking Facebook buttons on the page but when I click and go to the actual page on Facebook, there is complete disappointment. The pages are so badly maintained that I feel like telling them that they are better off without those icons on the website. Obviously badly maintained pages do more harm than no presence at all.

I have observed some very common mistakes which businesses make on Facebook. This article describes 7 such common mistakes and some suggestions on how to avoid those.

#1 Incomplete Page Information

Facebook offers great options to brands to position themselves properly and create a nice image. Brands often neglect the About, Contact Info and Basic Info sections and fill those out with some incomplete information. Remember to treat Facebook page as important as your website with accurate and complete information.

Secondly, there are things like Cover photo, profile picture. These offer you great way to create visual appeal on your page. Make sure you don’t ignore Facebook’s guidelines while designing the cover photo.  Create a profile picture which is visible in your posts. Creating a profile picture with brand logo which gets cropped in smaller size creates a very bad impression.

Facebook also allows you to carefully select top 3 tabs for your page. You can select those so that you can integrate other things like Twitter handle, YouTube Channel for your brand, Contests etc with  your Facebook page. Set nice images for those tabs which go well with your brand.

#2 Lack of Theme

By theme I mean the content theme. The job does not end with creation of a page with nice photos and profile picture. In fact, it starts after that. Before you join the social media bandwagon, please do think and decide your social media objective. What are you going to use Facebook for? Don’t use it for posting some random things or don’t treat it as another advertising billboard. Create a theme for your page. Let people connect with the theme. Let them look forward to your updates.

#3 Lack of Consistency/ Too much Posting

This is something which I have observed with many pages.  There is a whole bunch of activity during the initial period or during some major event. But as the time progresses, the activity reduces. There are no updates, the page information is old, the page shows incorrect phone numbers/ website URLs, questions by users are not answered etc. On the other hand, some pages get over excited and start posting even if someone sneezes. Anything extreme is not acceptable. Maintain consistency. Attain engagement. Identify the ideal time when your users can be best engaged by posting only relevant updates.

#4 Incorrect Handling of Negative Comments

Most of the brands are scared about negative comments on social media. They choose either to ignore them completely or handle them very poorly. Handling negative comments on social media is tricky but one fundamental rule you need to remember is that you MUST respond to all negative comments. Never delete those leave or leave them unattended. When someone posts something negative, use that as an opportunity to take care of the issue and turn an unhappy user into a loyal brand advocate.

#5 Ignorance to Messages

Did you know that your users can send you private messages in your Page’s inbox? Make it a habit to check those and respond. Many times, people are not comfortable vouching their concern publicly on timeline or need to bring something to your attention through a private message. Respect that and respond to all private messages.

#6 Quantity over Quality 

Your main focus on Facebook cannot be only increasing the fans. There are numerous ways to increase the fans – including purchase of fans. I would strongly recommend not going by this way. If your objective of being on Facebook is to connect with your users, get them involved in your brand and provide them an additional platform to interact with you, then the fake profiles do not add any value to your page.

#7 Lack of Engagement

Ignoring user comments, not answering the questions, not acknowledging appreciations, not paying attention to grievances – all these things tend to lack of engagement on your page. Unlike advertisement, which is essentially one way communication, Facebook offers you an opportunity for two-way communication with your product/ service users. Isn’t this a great opportunity to listen to them, know what they want, provide immediate solutions to their problems and get them involved in your brand? Why not utilize it to the fullest?

Have a critical look at your page and see if you are committing any of these mistakes – knowingly or unknowingly? 

Your 10 Most Common Social Media Questions Answered

When I meet with small and medium size business owners to discuss with them their marketing objectives and offer actionable advice, I often come across lot of questions about social media. It could be because: it’s not very old, it’s evolving very fast (with new platforms coming up every day),  it’s important (everybody seems to be using it!), there are lot of success stories but it has to be done differently for every business (requires creativity) and there is confusion about ROI and so on.  

I agree that no two businesses are same, however, since I do discuss similar topics quite often, I thought of putting together the questions and the best practices I suggested.  If you are faced with similar issues/ questions, you will enjoy this read  :- )   

#1 Do I really need social media?

This is the MOST commonly asked question. Many businesses think that they don’t really need this new media. After all they are just doing fine without it so far. But then I ask them: aren’t you worried that you might miss on some new lead generation methods? You might miss on some very valuable customer connection and engagement opportunity? When brands worldwide – right from Fortune 500 to the small cafes around the corner are benefitting from it, aren’t you willing to give it a thought that there might be some merit in it?

Getting involved in social media allows you to be more engaged with your current and potential clients.  The word “transparency” was probably most clichéd word used to describe social media some 3-4 years ago, but it’s very true.  Social media allows companies to have a voice and to show the public that your company is willing to listen and gather unsolicited feedback.  Social media also allows your brand to provide that extra customer service option outside of the traditional email and phone media.

So while you need to definitely look into if your target audience is on social media or not, you should not reject is outright without giving it a thought.  

#2 Which is a better platform? Facebook or Twitter?

What would you answer if you are asked “Is T-Shirt more appropriate or a formal shirt?” Well, you would say “depends on the occasion” right? Now apply the same principle. Whether Facebook is better or Twitter clearly depends on your objective, purpose, your target market and your user group. Both the platforms have their own merits, purpose, usage guidelines and benefits. You need to understand your marketing and communication objective and then choose an appropriate platform. You need to also consider that people’s behavior on Twitter is different than on Facebook.  Twitter timeline moves faster than Facebook so you really need to post almost like real-time updates on Twitter. It provides the kind of immediacy. Whereas; on Facebook, you have better opportunity to have more in-depth conversation around a topic. Picture sharing is more appreciated on Facebook than Twitter.  So I would say that if at all you have to choose, apply a simple test: Choose a platform where your audience spends more time :-)

#3 Can I use LinkedIn for promotion of my business?

I would not recommend this. LinkedIn as a platform is for connecting with individuals, getting in touch with professionals and experts and interacting with them. Mostly I have observed people using LinkedIn groups to promote their business. This is strict NO. Discussion Groups, as the name itself says, are for discussions. Use them to discuss interesting topics, share point of views and learn. Don’t dilute the purpose by commenting with product promotions. Do it ONLY IF you truly believe that your product offers the value in line with the discussion which is going on.

#4 Does Google AdWords work better than Facebook ads?

Both the types of ads have shown great results for businesses. Fundamentally, although both work on the principles of Pay-Per-Click or Pay as Per Impressions, there is a slight difference. Google ads are more keyword driven. You choose the keywords for which you would like to show your ad, put a bid you are willing to pay and you are done. In Facebook, you can choose to show your ads based on interests like photography, reading, writing etc. Essentially you show your ads to people who you think would be ‘relate’ with your ads better.

Secondly, you need to remember that there is always intent on Google. When someone does a search on Google, he/she has come there with some intention (of either making a decision, making a purchase, research etc).  On Facebook, mostly people are for networking and connecting with friends. So the intent is not explicitly there.

Consider all these options when you take a call.

#5 Does Social Media work for B2B?

Absolutely - Just that you need to use it in a different way. With B2B, use social media to build thought leadership, gather reviews and opinions and educate people. Don’t make the mistake of using social media as any other marketing campaign. Focus on two-way dialogue with your audience rather than one-way messaging. Be patient and you are sure to go long way with this.

#6 How do I create a viral campaign?

Unfortunately there is no formula which can guarantee your campaign to go viral. Of course there are some common elements of a successful viral campaign. Here is one of my previous articles speaking about viral campaigns in detail.

#7 How to get more followers and fans?

You will find numerous articles describing how to increase your fans and followers. But the first thing you need to remember with social media is that it is better to have 10 engaged followers than 100 non-engaged ones. Yes, numbers do matter to create an impact, but do not compromise on quality for the sake of quantity.

Having said that, you can achieve numbers as well as quality with well thought out strategy and plan. Sharing useful and insightful content, initiating meaningful dialogues, making it easy to find you on social media and offering exclusive content on social media are some of the ways which can help you get more engaged fans and followers. In case of Facebook, you can run Facebook ads to drive audience to your page. Do remember to have a concrete execution plan in place to keep the audience engaged. Otherwise, you are sure to lose them in no time.

#8 How much will social media cost?

If I say social media does not cost of anything, I will be lying. Although most of the platforms are free, you do need to spend quality time for using those platforms effectively. So there is investment of time – which is not free :). There are paid options available like pay-per-click ads, promoted tweets etc, but you can very effectively use the platforms without spending money on those – just with your creativity.   Make sure to keep your audience interested in being connected with you, value their connection and offer them something worth their attachment with you, get them involved in your brand – emotionally as well as through some gestures like discounts, exclusive offers etc.

#9 Will I be able to measure the ROI?

Definitely yes! Don’t believe those who tell you that you cannot measure ROI on social media – they don’t know how to measure it. The ROI with social media can be both qualitative as well as quantitative. Here is one of my past articles on how to measure ROI with social media.

#10 How to handle negative comments on social media?

This is one question which is asked many times. There is a common misconception that social media opens a can of worms with lot of negative comments. But actually thinking, if at all there are negative sentiments, at least social media is offering you a platform to KNOW about those sentiments which you would have never known – but your customers and others would have definitely known. With such negative comments on social media, you are at least getting an opportunity to address those negative comments/ sentiments and regain the confidence of your customers, whom you would have probably completely lost. In this article, I have described a simple 3-step approach on handling negative comments on social media.

Hope you enjoyed reading this article. I have also co-authored a book ‘Are you Socially Shy? to help small and mid-size business owners get started with social media. This book describes getting started with 6 popular social media platforms in 8 hours. The platforms covered in this book are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare and Blog.

Look forward to hearing your comments! 

Note: This article was originally published on YourStory.in at http://yourstory.in/2012/07/your-most-common-social-media-questions-answered/