Small Businesses losing sales due to 'obstinate' social media use?

Let?s put on our customer hats for a minute; what?s the worst thing a business can do that?ll make you cut ties with them? If you answered ?being spammed? that?s exactly what most small/medium sized businesses are doing in social media ? and they are losing big money because of it.

An article by the Telegraph UK published a recent survey of 1,000 companies by Business Network International which found that most business owners still don?t know how to approach social media for the benefit of their brands. ?BNI?s national director Charlie Lawson said small companies are ?still far from understanding how the medium works best?.

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DON?T treat your social media contacts as an extension of your mailing list

In the old days companies would mail their subscribers flyers and promotional campaigns en masse and you could only hope that a family member would be in need of your product or service and pay attention to your flyer, most people would just toss it out as spam. Email came long and we decided that strategy worked there too ? and it did? sort of. Now social media is the newest, shiniest advertising tool and many SMBs are trying to work the strategy a third time, but in a world where users can?t spare 3 seconds for a page to load you can?t expect them to read every post you upload.

DON?T bombard followers with promotional messages

Using social media to draw in new and repeat business is a great strategy and ? in fact ? is what social media is really good at, but you will not achieve this by having what I call a ?me me me? attitude. Bombarding your followers with constant posts about your brand and your products will only turn them off. You need to provide valuable and engaging content to maintain a healthy and happy following and posting about your ?great product which you must buy now!? ten times a day does not fit that description.

DON?T give up too soon

Business owners add a social media strategy thinking it?s free and it?ll show results fast. We read about all these social media success stories and we tend to forget that while social media can be free, it still takes time and plenty of resources to make a campaign successful. Companies get discouraged when an immediate sale opportunity doesn?t arise and don?t pay attention to that lead?s possible referral opportunities. There are plenty of valid reasons for your company to be in social media and lead generation doesn?t have to be one of them!

DON?T fail to monitor staff members who misuse company social media accounts

Ideally as a small business owner you would be the person in charge of all of your social media accounts but time is not always on your side and we understand that you will probably end up relenting control to a trusted employee. Make sure you set up a social media policy so that none of your employees will unknowingly tarnish your brand?s reputation and make sure that monitoring mentions of your brand is at the top of your security priorities.

DON?T ignore criticism or online reviews

Reviews and word of mouth can make or break a company. Business owners love to brag about their positive reputation and the raving reviews they receive but little is done with criticism or negative reviews. In a pre-social media era a negative review could go virtually unnoticed, now they can even affect a company?s stock price.

Setting up a proper Reputation Management guide is a great way to mold your social media strategy and lower the risk while engaging in conversation with your followers.

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Related posts:

1. How Are Small Businesses Using Social Media?
2. Free Online Reputation Management Guide for Small Businesses!
3. Should my Small Business be on Social Media?

Source: http://threatblog.org/social-media/small-businesses-losing-sales-due-to-obstinate-social-media-use/

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