If you are using social media to promote your business and yet your business is still unproductive, failing, or customers still are bailing by the droves, don't blame social media, blame yourself.  Sound harsh?  Facts are facts.  Here are some reasons I have found through my own visits with fellow business owners, research, and on hand experience why social media is good as only the people behind it executing the content.

1. Value   Are you providing good valuable content
that has interest to your followers?  Do you create content that allows interaction or are you only thinking of yourself of what you like?  Create content that will make them want to come back for more or click on other links that leads to what you do or products you sell.

2. Analytics    Do you take time to measure what you post and see if it is effective?  If what you do is not monitored or measured why are you wasting your time with that content?  Take time to invest in a measuring system such as Google or a similar program and see what is working for you.

3.  Who is posting for you  While having a young person or an employee post content for you is cost-effective, do
you monitor what they post?  What they may think is "cool" or informative may not be what you or your customers want.  Do they have your business model at heart?  Watch what they do, hire a professional or do it yourself.  The newbie might be excited and think they know it all but they
may wind up posting who they got trashed with last night or dated accidentally on your professional platforms and you, my friend, will have mess. Make sure they know what they are doing.

4.  Sell yourself and the business on Social Media. 
It's OK to suggestive sell and promote your business (not you) on your platforms. Offer a special, talk about a product that you offer. Don't be a blow-hard, don't be egotistical that you know it all but offer to your customers, your service and your expertise  in a professional manner.

Using social media can be a fun and rewarding experience to gain trust, customers, and friends when done in the right methodology.  Have a plan and execute it properly. 
Good luck and now go make some money!


 

We just had Pinterest and it has caught on well as a social media tool for business.  Now we have Social Cam.  Many of us have "played" around with this on our personal Facebook  pages and Twitter but then it hit me.  How could this app, if at all, be applied for business usage?  While it is still kind of new and being used mostly by young people, I do see some possible benefits  for business applications. 

First if you are not familiar with Social Cam, it is an app that can be intigrated to Facebook and you sign up for it on the web.   You basically watch short unedited videos of people and events.  Some are silly, some are interesting, some are touching, but most are just kids doing anything and everything and uploading it so their freinds can see where they are in pretty much "real- time".   Ironically as of this writing, you only can use Social Cam through your smart phone's camera to shoot videos and upload them from there.  They are working to allow desktop publishing of videos or using your web cam that is on your home desktop but as of today, that is not happening.  Perhaps that is the whole novelty of Social Cam and to do that would just make it another YouTube sort of experience. 

Now for the business aspect.  Look at this scenario.  Suppose your business is having a huge sale. You pay for live radio remotes or television commercials.  You have your smart phone with you and would it not be cool to shoot some quick real-time video of your sale?  Why not shoot some crowd action or interview a customer you know personally and get their excitement and upload it to your Twitter or FB  fan page site?  Wow, you just reached out to your masses!   I see other postive uses of Social Cam for businesses as well.  Applicants sending short introduction of themselves, maybe answering a question you submitted , new product line introduction, but I digress.  Let me know your thoughts. Will Social Cam be a novelty or will it  grow into a huge new social media tool?