So you know that having a social media presence is essential for your business, and you’ve gotten started on all your favorite platforms. Facebook posts? Check. Twitter? Yep. You’re even regularly updating your blog. But maybe you aren’t getting the results you want. There’s not much “social” going on in your social media: no conversation. Here’s the one mistake that many social media marketers are making: they’re not making it personal.
You are the face of your business and your social media should reflect that. Sure, you want to convert Facebook likes into actual dollars, but before that happens, you need to establish the trust of your community. The way to do that is to open up personally. We don’t mean sharing your personal address and medical history, but sharing some bits of your life and what makes you a person that people want to work with will go far. So how to do that? We’ll share some tips we’ve learned along the way.
- Use “I”. When you’re sending out tweets, Facebook posts, etc., check your tense. Are you referring to your company or yourself in the third person? Try to start using “we”, or if you are smaller and want the posts to feel like the are coming directly from the president of the company, use “I”. This small change goes a long way in making people feel like they are interacting with an actual person, not a marketing campaign.
- Share. Did you take an amazing vacation or meet an inspirational person in your career? Talk about it! The trick is to give your personal stories a business slant by relating it to your company. For example, remember Pam’s post about her mom (Four Things I Learned from My Mother on Being a Woman in Business (or Anywhere for that Matter) and dad (7 Life Lessons I Learned From My Father)? These were incredibly personal stories, about childhood and family. But in order to make it relevant to CommuniTech, she put a spin on the stories to demonstrate the lessons she learned about being an entrepreneur. Not only did these stories demonstrate her business know-how, they also introduced the readers (you!) to her as a person–someone who is dedicated to family, fostering good relationships and taking care of business!
- A photo is worth a thousand words. Particularly if you are a smaller business, your face is the face of your business. Even large corporations can benefit from using faces–it makes you that much more relatable and less intimidating. Use your own headshot for social accounts when it’s relevant, post videos of yourself promoting your products and photos of you at events and meetings. You may think people don’t care, but they do. Killing time on a layover for a business trip? Snap a photo of yourself at the airport and post it to Instagram. Everyone can relate to the pain of a long layover!
We hope that over the course of joining us in social media, you feel like you know us a little better. And we want to know you too! Feel free to connect with us via Facebook, Twitter and Linked In. You can connect with Pam’s account on Linked In as well.