Krishna De: How to Become a Social Business
The Dublin City Enterprise Board Christmas networking event featured social media expert, Krishna De, focusing on "5 Keys to Becoming a Social Business".
The event was attended by over eighty members from the various Dublin City Enterprise Board networks and the night included the social media presentation, the announcement of annual awards, some structured networking as well as informal networking over wine and finger food.
The participants who attended had filled out a survey on social media use in advance and Krishna incorporated these findings into her talk. Krishna started by advising all companies to get online. It is vital to have a presence online as 72% of homes in Ireland now have access to the internet. Krishna mentioned the www.gettingbusinessonline.ie initiative as one easy way to put your business online. Social media works as a way of getting people to connect to the business website.
Krishna stressed that social media is really valuable but an enterprise needs to audit what they are doing to make sure that it is working for them. All of the media have strengths but are suited to particular markets, for example Facebook is more suited to marketing to consumers while LinkedIn is more suited to selling to businesses.
Krishna structured her presentation around five key tips which creates an audit of the social media presence of the enterprise:
- Define the purpose of the business
Is it search engine optimisation? Awareness? New markets? Reduced overheads? Enhanced customer service? Increased sales and referrals? - Determine the objectives of the business
How will the owner/manager measure the effect of their efforts? How long will to plan for initially? Three months? Of those that responded to the survey, 84% said that they did not measure their results. For example, the owner/manager needs to ask whether their Facebook or Twitter accounts are sending people to the website? What percentage click through and when does this happen? - Understand the market and social media: Where, Which, What, Who?
Where is the target market? What platforms do they use? What kind of content do they need? The enterprise needs to define the persona of their target market – what key words do they use? If social media is the main marketing activity, the owner/manager will need to spend more than an hour a week managing it. People typically connect in order to get exclusive content, deals and to enter competitions. Ask customers what they would like. - Engage and Educate
The owner/manager needs to develop the content of the business, draw up a conversational calendar, be engaging and educational. Do a plan setting out what content to share and setting out guidelines – share these with employees or other partners. The content should reflect the expertise of the enterprise. Ideas include: Frequently Asked Questions, surveys/polls, interview an expert, reuse an eNewsletter article, comment on issues. - Reputation Management
The enterprise needs to check out who is talking about their product or service using tools such as Google Alert. Are there forums where the target customers meet? Put in place a process for responding to negative comments.
Krishna finished with some final tips:
- Social ads: An enterprise can run a very focused advertising campaign on social media sites. One example is how Bord Gais ran its Big Switch campaign advertising on Facebook to bring people to its website. It is important to take people to a useful landing page (for example a voucher), not the home page. Facebook is better for targeting consumers, LinkedIn is for targeting businesses.
- Fresh content to increase Google ranking: A blog can help to keep content fresh, as can addition of photos, videos on YouTube and Facebook pages.
- Integrate the database into social media channels: For example, send a newsletter that brings people to the website.
Krishna concluded by encouraging attendees to develop a ninety day social media plan and to regularly audit their social media marketing activities under the five headings listed above.
For more information on how to make it easy for consumers to share the content of the business using the tools Krishna lists, please visit www.krishnade.com/dceb.