Whoooo are you? Who? Who?
When Google first started, it was all about what you could know. Now, with Facebook and friends it’s all about who you can know. And there’s a whole lot of whos to know. Keep in mind that all of those Whos down in Whoville, the tall and the small, why, they’re all joined together–without any touching at all! Well, thanks Dr. Seuss, but the point is that ‘friends tell friends’; that means news travels faster on a social network than a juicy rumour at a Tupperware party. Now all that might all sound like a lot of fun, but the real question on the minds of most good capitalists is: “what does it mean for my business?” Well, it means that for a relatively small cost you can generate more buzz about your product or website than an ad campaign that costs thousands of dollars. Here’s how it’s done:
A Whole Lot of Whovilles
The first thing you have to do is get set up on as many social sites as you can. There’s a ton of them out there. Unless you’ve been living under a damp log, you’ve heard about Facebook; it’s the biggest. Then there’s the new player on the block Google +. LinkedIn is for sharing professional business contacts. Twitter is great for “tweeting” short messages like what you had for lunch today or, even better, that you’re offering 30% off all of your products today. If you want to send longer messages than Twitter allows, you’’ probably want a blog. There’s YouTube, where you might have heard you can post videos of your product or service. Digg is a social news network where you can post news releases and articles and people share them and vote on their worthiness. For some of these sites it’s just a matter of signing up or subscribing. For others, like Facebook or Twitter, a business page can be set up with all of your branding and the look and feel of your main homepage.
Drawing Your Whos In
Now it’s time for the hard part: content. You can’t just throw up a brag about how great your company is and leave it at that. Nope, you’ll be a lot more successful on the social scene if your content is vibrant, interesting, ever-changing and valuable. The style should be casual and completely geared to your customer’s perspective. Some possibilities include new product announcements, useful information about your product that relates to common problems or situations your customers often have and special sales, promotions or coupons that give great value to your products and services. And you’ve got to change your content frequently—if you’re on Twitter as much as a few times a week– because each time you change your content all the people that follow you get contacted. It’s like repeating a TV commercial except its slightly different each time.
Getting Your Whos To Hold Hands
Once you’ve got your content in the next thing to do is get everybody you have ever possibly known to view, then follow you on Twitter, ‘friend’ or ‘like’ you on Facebook, link to you on YouTube or subscribe to your news feed on Digg. Maybe you already a friend list somewhere; now’s the time to use it. If you’re totally new to social networking you’ll have to write some interesting posts to attract people or you’ll have to hunt for people you know and tell them you’ve just launched a Facebook page, come and see!
Once your core audience connects with you on some level, fate takes over. Each time one of your core audience connects with you, their friends get notified that they have done so. Now those people come to check you out and then their friends get notified. And so on and so on into a potentially astonishing exponential growth where your business gets the attention of , well, a whole lot of people. Not only that, but once those connections are formed, if someone were looking for , say, a good real estate agent in the area they can search through all of their friends and their friends and so on and so on until they find you. And what’s better than a real estate agent that comes with a friend’s recommendation?
A Helping Hand for Happenning Whos
All of this can seem pretty overwhelming—you’ve got to pay attention to a lot of people, posting new articles, answering replies, comments and friending, liking and replying to all of the connection requests you’ll get. What was once supposed to be fun can get to be a lot of work, although the rewards can be huge. Whether its setting up your social pages so they look great, copywriting or just managing and streamlining the whole process, we can help so you don’t Twitter your whole life away. Call or drop by for a chat and we’ll get you started and all set up.