5 Social Media Platforms To Help You Promote Your Business.

With so many social media platforms to choose from – which ones will increase performance for your business? At Bee Social Smart we know that social media is a necessary tool for you to be able to add value to your business.

Below is a brief outline of just 5 (of the many) options available and that can help you increase your sales today.

Join Us On Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social media platform that enables you too connect to people or businesses. With approximately 555 million accounts there are plenty of people/businesses to communicate with!

Since there are around 9,000 tweets go out every second your tweet has a very short life cycle span – Twitter Users need to post little and often intermittently throughout the day.

Facebook

Like Us on Facebook

Many people use Facebook for pleasure but did you know that you can also create a business page?
Facebook potentially gives you the chance to attract a different type of audience to Twitter, plus you can post a picture which is instantly visible to your audience.
Once your page has received 30 likes, you are then able to access ‘insights’ which are statistics to help you identify which helps you measure your efforts.
Facebook Users need to determine how often they are going to post on their business page and stick to it – By posting regular, reliable content people will learn to visit your page as a trusted source of information.

Linked-In

Find us on LinkedIn too!

Linked-in gives you the chance to show off your business skills. It is a powerful tool which enables you to display your CV to the entire world! You are given the opportunity to ‘Connect’ with fellow business, people and build relationships with experts that work in the same field as you as well as potential clients.
Linked-in also gives you the opportunity to build yourself an excellent reputation as passed or present colleagues are able to recommend you to their connections.

 

See what we pin

Pinterest
Pinterest is a virtual online pin board. You are able to create boards about subjects you love. For example, if you own a hair salon you could create the following boards:

• Styles that you have created in your salon (the before and after picture)
• Styles which are trending in big cities such as London
• Fashion

Link to these pins on other social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. Other users will also see your pins and start to follow you. Pinterest is perfect for any business that has a product to sell or a visual representation of their service.

Watch our videos on YouTube

YouTube
You Tube enables you to put videos of yourself  and market your brand, this can help people develop an instant connection with you.
People in life are very busy – so it is recommended that your video be 3 minutes or less in time – as always content is key.

All of the above are powerful tools which can be used to drive traffic to your website.

Would you like to know more about how to use social media platforms to increase performance in your business? We  are running two workshops on 14th November.

• An introduction to social media
• Intermediate workshop – How to get the most of social media

Can’t make on the 14th November, or think a workshop is not for you? We also offer a range of social media consultancy, training and social media management services.

We love to help, contact us through any of our social media channels and we would love to chat and see if we can help.

Re-purpose Content With Digital Animation

Videos make great online content and, compared to using real video footage, digital animation is a relatively quick and flexible way to put together an entertaining piece.

Here’s how BeeSocialSmart created an animated video from existing content…..

Re-purpose Existing Content: In terms of promoting your services, re-packaging your existing content in the form of a video can provide new marketing opportunities and stimulate interest in your company.  YouTube videos are great for your Google ranking and, social media gurus like Jeff Bullas are always telling us, they are more likely to get shared and prompt feedback via social media channels.  They also provide a fun and interesting way to encourage people to find out more about you by visiting your website.

We had the idea of creating an animated video to promote our social media services and started thinking about how to create a short ‘sting’ to tell people what we do.  The style needed to be clear and bright, show off our friendly personality and give a short, comprehensive message of what we are about.

Pare Down Content: Before thinking of any visuals, we sat down and made some notes on what we wanted to say.  The message had to be made up of short sentences and bullet points but not become too slogan-y.  It also had to get straight to the point, be quick to read and easy to understand.

There’s so much to say about your own business that it can be quite difficult to pare it down to the bare essentials.  However, we think we did quite a good job of picking a few choice phrases and still giving a strong ‘call to action’.

Key Points for video content:

• Keep messages short and easy to absorb
• Don’t overload the screen
• Pace things so that people have time to read the text
• Unless it’s a tutorial, if your video starts to get more than a couple of minutes long consider splitting it into two separate clips.
• Try to be consistent with your other marketing materials and activity
• Make it clear what people should do when they reach the end

After sorting out the text content, we began thinking about how to present the information visually.

Use Your Brand:  The star of the show was always going to be our busy bee, but of course we also needed to make good use of our logo and brand colours. By taking

Social Media Can Help Your Business Bloom

inspiration from other elements such as the BeeSocialSmart website and our presentation material, we were able to keep a consistent feel.  Consistency is important because it helps people understand who the message is from and gives a much more professional impression.

From this point on, it’s really a case of using your imagination!  The great thing about animation is that pretty much anything is possible.  However, it’s still important to remember to present text clearly and pace things so that people have time to read and absorb the information.

Animation: Sitting down with the animator, we first of all worked on getting the text to flow and then used the animated bee to link the ‘scenes’ together.  We added a vibrating effect to the word ‘buzz’ and, naturally, the word ‘bloom’ was just crying out for a few flowers.  We chose a vibrant pink to bring in an extra splash of colour and add a little impact.

We didn’t have a voiceover, so we chose some soundtrack music which we used to set the pace and timing for the animation.  Adding a few sound effects completed the job!

The finished video was uploaded to our new YouTube channel and embedded into the BeeSocialSmart website.  From there is was easy to promote the video using Facebook and Twitter.

If you want more help with understanding how to use video as part of your online marketing strategy then contact us info@beesocialsmart.co.uk or visit our web site www.beesocialsmart.co.uk.

6 Reasons Your Social Media Efforts Are Failing

So you’re on every social media site you can imagine. You’re posting, Tweeting, telling everyone about your business but “IT’S JUST NOT WORKING”. Ever wondered why?

Maybe it’s time to review exactly what you’re doing; make good use of the time you devote to social media activities.

1. You don’t have an objective for you social media activity – Without a clear objective it’s no wonder things aren’t going to plan. You wouldn’t go into a sales meeting without a bottom line offer in your pocket! Be clear what you want social media to achieve for your business; to acquire and engage new customers, to gain leads and referrals, or to boost awareness, to give you an insight into a new business area, even to become the ‘go to’ expert on a particular topic.

2. You are on the wrong sites? – With myriad options how do you know which one’s are right? Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google+, Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Foursquare – these are some you may know.  Making them work for you does require a bit of homework. Find out where you potential customers are most likely to be active – not all sites work for all brands. Think “Who do we want to talk to” and “What do we want to say” to help focus your social media efforts on sites where your ideas are most likely to appeal to the audience.

3. You are not giving readers/followers anything to react to? – Remember social media is about conversation and communication. Don’t just broadcast – LISTEN. Nobody wants to read time again about your new widget or service, your latest special offer,or why they have to buy what you sell. It’s like chatting to a friend – ask questions, respond to their views, agree or disagree with them, repeat the good stuff, challenge them – don’t just talk about yourself.

4. You delegate social media to an office junior/PA/Admin assistant. – A classic error. Don’t assume that because your PA/admin assistant is on Facebook that she knows how to use it for business. Social media success requires you to be real, be yourself and show a personality that is appropriate for your business. Find an expert or do it yourself.

5. You pushed out too many ideas. – Keep it simple. It takes time for potential customers to get to know your business, don’t switch and change your posts, tweets or videos too frequently. Create a content strategy and calendar with themes and topics that are relevant. Allow time for people to absorb what you’re saying.

6. You gave up too soon – Few relationships are ‘love at first sight’ and social media is no different. If you are guilty of any point in 1-5 above you probably haven’t had a great first date. But don’t give up too soon. It does take time, some planning and a bit of effort. But the results will be worth it.