Social Networking

Social networking is the latest way to market your business, allowing you to reach a global audience for a fraction of the cost, time, and effort associated with more old fashioned forms of networking.

For those of you unfamiliar with the latest networking tools online, there are a number of sites available to businesses to market themselves, a selection of these are summarised below, with the remainder of the article focusing on Twitter, and why you should be bothered!

Twitter
Twitter is the fastest growing free online networking site, that enables users to interact and read each others ‘Tweets’, up to a maximum of 140 characters. Initially, the reaction to Twitter is one of ‘why should I be bothered?’, but Companies worldwide are now realising the potential of being able to interact with the general public, as well as using it as a forum to offer advice, and draw people towards the Company’s website.

Facebook
Facebook is a free online networking site, allowing colleagues, friends, and Companies to interact with selected people. Facebook is the most used social networking site worldwide, and is being used by organisations to keep in contact with clients and employees, and also to increase brand profile.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn has a reputation as being a more business focused website, and acts as an online address book of contacts. Users are able to post updates about what they are working on, who they are working with, or who they would like to work with. People within a network are able to see the updates and then recommend their own contacts to somebody else. LinkedIn is very much an online version of traditional networking, and relies on the word of mouth recommendations of people who know and trust us.

Chamber of Commerce Business Networking Online
The BCC have realised the value of social networking and have set up their own online offering.
www.thebusinessnetworkonline.com is a similar site to LinkedIn and enables Companies to raise their profile online for no extra cost. The Chamber also provide users with details of tenders, and new business alerts.

So, should practitioners be bothered to get involved with social networking, especially Twitter?
If nothing else it could be good for the practitioner to know enough about it to be able to advise clients to take a look at it and see if it was relevant for their particular product or service. All kinds of businesses are taking advantage of the wide audience that Twitter addresses. It gives businesses the opportunity to be the ‘thought leader’ and to express opinions about news, as well as being a great marketing tool for pulling in new customers.

Twitter is fast becoming a new means of searching the internet for up-to-date information and advice. Twitter can offer a wider range of page results than Google, and gives the user more recent content. So if a user was looking for tax advice in Birmingham for example he may well search for this on Twitter and find a local accountancy firm who has set themselves up on Twitter who are posting daily or weekly updates.

Whilst posting updates to Twitter are restricted to 140 characters, users can set up a profile explaining more about their firm and where they are located etc, a link can also be posted to their Company website, and a link to their blog if they have one.

Companies should be looking to harness the power of Twitter and its large worldwide audience to attract more users to its own website and thus enhancing its natural listings on other search engines such as Google, without having to pay for expensive search engine optimisation. This can be achieved by businesses posting an update on the latest tax rates for example, and post a link in that update directing Twitter users to read the full article on their Company website.

Twitter is fast becoming the new way to connect with so many people easily online. The ability to search for people in your locality also means that your efforts and not just reaching the global audience but a more local targeted user too.
Twitter can be used to conduct surveys, to get feedback from users on relevant topics, and to spread the word about your practice.

There is obviously a wrong way and a right way to social networking, just like other more conventional means of networking. If you do it wrong you can sometimes do more damage than good. Here are 5 top tips to using Twitter to help maximise the opportunities it presents;

1. Be consistent with posting information on a regular basis. Provide links to useful articles and try to link to your website as much as you can.
2. Provide comment on topical issues, and provide links to external news websites and don’t just be concerned with plugging your own services.
3. Use the search tool, search for keywords and locality, such as ‘tax advice’ or ‘accountant’. This will give you a starting point of people who may have an interest in the services you provide, and will enable you to follow them , ensuring that they become aware of any future updates you post.
4. Follow other people who are influential in the sector you work in.
5. Make the most of your profile page and provide insight into the business etc, and any USP’s you have.