As a business, you have to ask yourself what the risks of using, or not using, social media are for your business. Do you understand what the risks are either way? You have to give some thought about marketing your business in Halifax, Dartmouth, Truro or elsewhere. It’s time to be wise and embrace risk in a smart way. The graphic below should get start you thinking.
Unmarketing Infographic: Used with permission
Whether you use social media, or you do not, here are some things for you to at least consider. Spend some time to read and reflect over them. Try to consider things from both sides of the coin.
Here are some thoughts regarding what things you should be looking at when using social media:
- What information are your sharing? Is there a chance this information could be used for identity theft? There are risks being on social media. You need to know what they are to avoid them.
- Could a competitor use that information against you? You might just let the cat out of the bag before its time. Sometimes it’s best to keep quiet till your idea is ready for the market for example.
- Are you sharing too much information so that your customer is no longer curious and attracted to your business? You want your customer to keep interested and wanting more. Keep them curious.
- Who is doing your social media? Are you doing it yourself or is someone doing your social media for you? Do your customers think that you are answering them when you are not doing your social media at all? This could go bad fast.
- If someone else is doing your social media for you, do they understand what can be shared? Different businesses have different risk factors. Whoever is doing your social media needs to understand your business risks. Do you have a policy for your social media?
- How well do you know your customer? Do you know how to specifically market to them? Are you customers even on social media?
- Do you know what keywords you want to show up for in search? Do you know what keywords your customers are searching for when the Google? What happens when you use keywords that know one is searching for?
- Do you know why you are doing what you do? Do your customers understand why you are doing what you are doing? Do you customers even understand why you get out of bed each day?
Here are some thoughts regarding what things you should be looking at if you are NOT using social media:
- Are you missing out in your marketing by not having a voice in the social media marketing arena?
- Is your competitor there talking to your customers?
- How is your website doing in search? Did you know that social media can help your search ranking?
- How do you handle the increasing costs of tradition marketing and determine which one is your best bet?
- How is traditional media marketing doing for generating leads for your business?
- Are you customers looking at your traditional media marketing efforts?
As a business you need to ask yourself questions around your customer marketing efforts. It’s the questions that you don’t ask that might even biting you on the backside. Think before you leap in life.
I still know some businesses that are not using social media. They are still not sold on the idea for using Facebook and Twitter, for example. And in some ways, I understand. That’s OK, if they understand what their inaction really means to their business. After all, it is their business and they need to navigate the ship as they feel led.
I have discovered that social media takes effort because there are people on the other end. Don’t be fooled into believing that it’s easy. You can always get smarter in your social media usage. But at the end of the day, marketing is still work. Social media requires work.
You need to think about what you are doing. You need to ask yourself the questions. I bet there’s a few more questions we could think about. Make sure you give your business some thought today.
So here’s to a great day of business for you 😀
