Social Media

Business Doctor: How to Use Social Media for Your Business.

Oyetola Oyewumi CEO of Chief Online Business and  Solutions Group explains  ''How to use Social Media for your Business'' in the article below he wrote and was published by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce 53Degreez Magazine.

How do I make the most of social media to promote my business?

The simple answer is that it really depends on your business; social media is primarily about engagement and taking advantage of ‘‘electronic word of mouth’’. These factors encourage trust within your social media audience to look at you as the authority and to trust your advice, recommendations and decisions.
These factors are what fuel the ultimate goal of social media i.e. ‘‘Going Viral’’

Social Media Explained in a Nut Shell

The simplest way I have found to explain social media is to take the analogy of a hairdresser or a barber, the engagement between these service providers and their customers while having the hair done is the most basic form of social media with all the necessary requirements of trust, comfort, reliability, etc.

The Big 4 Summarized

This is your brand of one as this is your profile not your companies or your organisation but you directly as the Brand Ambassador. Using LinkedIn effectively means amongst other things understanding how people find you, finding your LinkedIn community devoted to your business area/niche, addressing questions on LinkedIn within your area of expertise so that particular community be it in the legal sphere or be it about financial planning starts to recognise you as the go to person in that industry.

Your very own online T.V. Channel where your viewers can tune in to watch, listen and engage with you as the authority in your industry. Video Marketing is a powerful tool when used properly and it is too wide a subject to go into too much depth about.

Your very own ‘Brand Magazine’, aside from it being an online country of its own with a number of your customers both ‘‘B2B and B2C’’ it is also a powerful tool to tell a visual story to your audience.

If you could take Instant Messaging and texting from your phones and add a customer support and one on one element you would get twitter. Using Twitter is one of the fastest ways to show you know your niche and are an influencer/ expert on your market. Saving the most important for last:

To make the most of social media you need two very important ingredients:

1.Useful knowledge of your industry to provide valuable content that your audience will praise you for.

2. A social media strategy which involves you knowing the capabilities and limitations of all the mediums and avenues available to you via social media.
Having the content and strategy in place shapes your goals e.g. an Oil Company showing how it takes its CSR seriously is a very different goal and will require a totally different strategy to a Dentist raising brand awareness and the profile of his practice both Locally, Nationally and Internationally.

At COBS Group we have over 9years experience in digital online marketing, we are experts in Social Media, SEO, Web Design and Online Reputation Management. You can Follow and engage with us on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn or send us a smoke signal.

by Oyetola Oyewumi