Using social media for business is a perfect place to establish your role as an authority. You have the opportunity to rise above your competition and be seen as the expert in your field.
I hear you saying, “What? Facebook can make me the king (or queen) of (insert local industry here)?”
Yes. You can use social media for business to prove to your audience that you know what you are talking about. It is a great venue to show your clout firsthand. Where else can you do that this easily?
But Facebook is where I post pics of the kids
First you must know the difference between the Facebook used by your family and friends to keep up with EVERYTHING, and the business Facebook Page developed for conducting business. Two different creatures.
You are a “friend” on your personal Facebook and are able to see what everyone that is your friend adds to the feed. You see what they post and they see what you post plus other extraneous stuff.
You “like” or follow a business Facebook Page that is developed for a business and followers, and your Page, only see what is posted directly to the Page.
The great news is that the average person that follows a business has 300 friends. If they like what you are posting, and they share, then your outreach grows very quickly. So the goal is to be informative and interesting.
Ways to project authority
Share your knowledge! Here are some possible posts you can add to Facebook to do just that.
- Write helpful articles on your blog that your audience will find interesting enough to share. Might be tips and tricks, how to do a process, or an opinion piece.
- Take video of events, or show step by step how to’s.
- Share a slideshow presentation with notes that you presented at a recent conference or meeting. Also shows you participate in outside groups.
- If you have a business to business model you can establish authority by posting statistics on industry trends. Or talk about new products related to your field.
- If your model is business to customer then sharing testimonials, case studies, and user reviews can be very powerful. Or talk about new products related to your field.
Using Facebook for business and other social media sites help build, and more importantly maintain, contact with your customers and potential customers. Each time you post you are adding to your credentials. You become the authority.
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Sandi Sturm is the inbound marketing specialist at Alaskarama.com and mobile marketing specialist and developer at MobilePlusLocal.com.