How to use Social Media in Your Business

There is a tremendous amount of information about how important social media marketing is to a business. It must be clear to a business what their role is in using social media networks to further their business success. It is a radical change from putting out an ad and shaping opinion by controlling the message. Instead, it's no longer from the top down; it's now from the bottom up. The 'consumer' is now the individual with the power to spread their experience and knowledge among like minded individuals in their network. Word of mouth spreads faster and is more believed coming from the people a person knows in their network, than from any business trying to distribute a controlled message about how great their 'brand' is.
If a business tries to grab attention in a social media network by pushing a sales message that the company and its products and services are the greatest, it could severely damage the business's reputation quickly. So the first rule in social media is for business to listen and collect information about the likes and dislikes of their products and services. The next step is to define the target market that the products and services are best suited for. The next step is to rediscover the company's USP, or unique selling proposition. And the next step is to discern the benefits of why their product or service delivers the most value. Once the benefits or WIIFM (what's in it for me) are listed, it's time to participate in social media networks by delivering valuable content that truly helps your target market. Using a customized business blog helps. This is an education process to benefit people now, and get to be known as the 'go-to- authority for your industry. There are very few businesses that make it on lowest price and perpetual promotions, for they are always facing a new competitor claiming to be lower priced. What individuals want is high value from someone they've come to know and trust. When people see high value, in trade for their dollars, a business has the opportunity to develop long term loyal individuals who spread positive things about the business through word of mouth in their social networks.
A business is bound to make a mistake sometime in their approach, or in handling a service problem. If left unchecked, news like this can do a lot of damage to a business reputation online. Every business should at least use Google's Google Alert so that anytime the business name shows up anywhere on the internet, the business can know about it quickly. If it's negative, it is very important to respond in a way that helps support the business's reputation. Some businesses do a great job of responding on their own, but when it looks overwhelming, it's a good strategy to employ a reputation management team to address what can turn into a serious public relations problem.
What I hope website owners can draw from this is, there is a right way and a wrong way to participate in social media networks. Why not just rely on pay-per-click and search engine rankings and stay away from social media marketing? The reason is you have to get in front of your targeted audience where they are spending most of their time on the net, and develop a relationship that can develop consumers into loyal individuals who spread the word of mouth about your business. There is no 'word of mouth' in search engines, only among people who have gotten to know each other.