Thursday, 13 February 2014

Planting your business in social media soil



Plant your feet and stand firm in whatever you believe in but my question is: Where do you put your feet? I have planted my feet in the social media world for some years and I can say my harvest has been bountiful.

Before you plant anything, you need the seed, a fertile ground, water and care to nurture the plant. But the seed won’t sow itself; the fertile ground won’t seek for the seed,  likewise the water – it is a waste if it doesn’t wet the plants. One thing is needed; the decision of the famer to plant the seeds in due season.

Technology is shaping our world and will continue to shape it. Successful companies those that are sensitive to the changes around them. One of those changes is social media. More social media platforms will come up. But are you taking advantage of the existing ones? Companies often feel once they create a social platform for their organisations, they have gone social. Absolutely wrong! Creating a social platform is not the first step. The first is studying your brand to determine the social platform that suits your it. So, creating a wrong social platform means doing nothing social. Now that you have make up your mind to plant your feet on social ground, let me show you how you can plant and reap bountifully:

Your seed: Your objective is your seed. What do you want to achieve with the social drive? Once this is determined, you get a clearer picture of what you want to achieve at the end of the season. The farmer goes into the season with the expectation of what he wants to harvest at the end of the season. A farmer that wants to harvest cassava sets his mind on harvesting cassava (objective) and at the end of the season he harvests it. Set your mind on the objective you want to achieve.

After a farmer sets his mind on what he wants to harvest, he nurtures that seed in his mind as well. Nurture your social objective in your mind as well – if you know what you want your harvest to look like.

The fertile ground: Every farmer needs a fertile ground to plant; likewise,  your business needs a fertile ground to flourish. Social media is that fertile ground you need. The social media is today the biggest gathering of people (your customers). Whichever business you are into, you need people. Businesses are made up of people; your staff, your customers, your suppliers etc. For you to achieve your set goals socially, you need to create a social media platform for your business now.

Nurturing the plant: A farmer is filled with excitement when he sees his seed spring forth; but his work has just begun. I have seen the same excitement on the face of top C-level executives when a social media platform has been created for their business but your social business work has just begun as well.

After sowing your seed of the social media platform, you nurture these platforms with content. Content is king. Content is what drives your platform. In fact, social media marketing is moving towards content marketing. Lots of work go into content creation. It’s hard work.  One of the ways a farmer nurtures his plant is getting rid of the weeds; same with content. Filter your content, get rid of unwanted contents that may disturb your real message.

Another way of nurturing a plant is watering it adequately. Conversations and interactions are what water your social media platform; nothing more, nothing less. Relationship is the currency of any business; for you want to earn more of this currency, you need to maintain a constant conversation and interaction with you contacts. How can you do that? Get social.

There is lot to going social than what you see or know. Putting your advert on social networks won’t do the work for you, it’s more than that. Conversations and interactions make a great percentage of the success in going social.

Before the farmer plants he makes sure it’s the actual season, he makes sure it’s not going to rain before he sows the seeds; so the rain won’t wash his seeds away. Then he plants and waits for his harvest. The season is now, plant your seeds and wait for your harvest.

Ifesinachi Okpagu

Boost your business:

• Create a fan club

Nobody is better suited to tout the greatness of your business than your satisfied customers. If you glance at one or more of your own social networking pages, you see your “friends” and “followers” talking about all sorts of products and services. On sites like Facebook, you can even see company pages that your friends “like.”

• React effectively

Social networks can help you to discover problems or issues your clients are having. If the problems or issues are with your business, you can react appropriately and in a timely manner. Ideally, you can correct the problem before it becomes a major issue.

•Listen to what customers are saying

Social networking can help you identify what customers need and want. By identifying these, you can introduce new products and services. This can help improve your existing business services and products to better fit the needs of your customers.

•Communicate marketing messages

When you add social marketing to your marketing plan, you open up an additional avenue of communication with your current and prospective customers.

–Source: sunnybee.com



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