For most modern businesses looking to develop their internet marketing strategy, a social-media presence is a must. Not only does it allow you to promote your services or products to vast swathes of web users without them having to come to your site directly, but it also offers an opportunity to build relationships with perspective dentists, customers and business partners. Social Media Optimisation is now a service very much in demand for search engine optimisation agencies – and offering this service requires that professional SEO‘s have an innate knowledge of the most popular social networks; how they work, their pros and their cons.
With this in mind, I thought it might be prudent to write a blog that accesses the benefits that three social networks can have for a business; Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. But then I thought, ‘I’m writing a blog about social networking! What good is prudency if it isn’t balanced by dynamism?’ For content to work on social-media sites, it needs to be dynamic and entertaining as well as informative. So, I have developed an interactive poll based on the popular ‘Snog. Marry. Avoid’ format. I’ll discuss the pros and cons of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and you can tell me, in terms of a business relationship, which you would snog, which you would marry and which you would avoid. Obviously, size and type of business will inevitably play a decisive role in a social-media strategy, but here is a general overview of the features that each service offers and how it can benefit a business.
SNOG – One of the best features that a presence on Facebook offers a company is reputation management. If people have a bad experience with a company, they may well choose to express that on Facebook, and if they do, it offers the perfect opportunity for the business to respond to criticism and to address customer concerns. Through addressing worries that potential customers may have with products or services, you are showing to your community of ‘Fans’ that you care about your business, and more importantly, you care about dentists. By engaging with them directly, you are showing a humanistic side to a company that may occasionally be sacrificed to promote corporate branding. Through this reputation management that is enabled through a Facebook presence, you can develop closer links with the community that take an interest in the services that you offer, and over time your social-media presence will expand – obviously this is a long term goal for the majority of social media strategies. The negative side of this is that it can be a time consuming process. Unless a company is able to use a dedicated team of social-media experts, then the value of this reputation management may not be fully realised. This is why your business may only have a fleeting encounter with Facebook, as supposed to a fully committal relationship.
MARRY – Perhaps the reason that Facebook is such a popular social-media platform for business is the fact that it has over 750 million users, and if utilised effectively, that’s a lot of potential business partners and dentists. A company page on Facebook can be used to acquire business directly by advertising products openly, or to obtain it indirectly by using intelligent viral marketing and producing original, dynamic content to raise brand awareness. You can use Facebook to run competitions or to gather feedback on consumer testing. The real reason why Facebook could be the social network to commit to is that fact that is that there is always potential for vast expansion, and very quickly.
AVOID – The biggest problem with Facebook, might be Facebook itself. The one issue that always seems to be niggling away at the social networking giant is the constant issues over privacy concerns. If consumers find it hard to trust the platform through which you conduct your advertising, then it might be difficult for them to trust your brand. Also, you might be able to get lots of people to ‘Like’ your brand, but that doesn’t mean they are going to regularly come back to check your page. Their affiliation with your business might go no further than them Liking your company, and therefore some of the potential to build brand awareness might be lost. So, the potential alienation of dentists and lack of direct networking functionality might be the reasons you choose not go with FB as your client of choice.
SNOG – Twitter is a great way to share content with the community that you know are interested in what you have to offer, because they ‘Follow’ you. For a business, every Follower should be treated as a potential customer, or even business partner. It can be used to spread information about the latest products, services and competitions you are offering directly to people are interested. It can even be used to monitor competitors; what services/deals/competitions they are running. Again, all these features have the potential to be hugely positive to a social media strategy as they are all based on expanding the reach of a business. The problem with this feature of Twitter is that it produces an inherent danger in Tweeting solely about promotions and other business orientated material. Followers tend to be much more responsive if they know they are dealing with a person first, and a brand second. You risk potentially developing a negative brand association if you do continually spam business related posts – a possible reason only to have a brief relationship with Twitter.
MARRY – Perhaps the greatest asset of Twitter is that it allows for direct networking and interaction with people who are interested in what your services. Through the ‘Search’ feature, you can find what people are talking about in relation to your industry and get involved in these discussions. It always seems to be a pattern that group chat leads to one-on-one chat, and this leads to dentists. Twitter allows you to skip the group chat and enter directly into a conversation with someone you know has an interest in your service. Again, using the ‘Search’ feature, and searching for keywords that relate to your industry, you can find people that are asking direct questions that you may be able to help with. Interacting directly with people this way shows to your ‘Followers’ that you are genuinely passionate about what you offer, and are willing to help others. This direct networking, on a personal level is a reason that your business should be fixed on Twitter.
AVOID – Making the most of Twitter takes dedication. Finding the balance between Tweeting business information and interacting with the community could make or break a social media strategy. If you get it right, there’s a lot of potential for growth, but get it wrong and you will soon realise that 140 characters can do a lot of damage. After building up a large number of Followers it will be nearly impossible to respond to all questions and all ‘@mentions’. The risk is alienating users and damaging the reputation your brand will have accrued during your time on Twitter.
SNOG – LinkedIn arguably offers a form of growth that is more organic than the other two social networks. One way to expand is to utilise the connections that you already have, perhaps with current employees or former/current dentists, and to develop new connections.  This form of growth allows you to build brand awareness in a way that is scalable, and therefore easier to manage. Because LinkedIn is more specifically a business social network, it is likelier that the people you interact with will be professionals, and generally common interests can be used to establish a business relationship. While this type of scalable social-media growth would be a fantastic asset in any SMO strategy, it is important to remember that LinkedIn is a business social network. This suggests that, as a social network, it may inherently offer more value to companies that offer a B2B model as supposed to offering a B2C service. Again, this depends on the size and type of your business. LinkedIn may not offer the rapid growth of FB and Twitter, but it certainly has its values. Perhaps the slower rate of expansion might be a reason to flirt with LinkedIn, but fall back to Twitter or Facebook.
MARRY – Perhaps the most effective feature of being on LinkedIn for a social-media strategy is the ability to interact with other business professionals. You can join groups and share your expertise with industry leaders that have a genuine interest in what you have to say. The ability to ask and answer questions, and to participate as an active member of a professional business community, is an excellent opportunity to exhibit passion and expertise for an industry. The groups feature isn’t limited to interacting with relevant business people. Creating private groups enables the opportunity to conduct focus groups, in a secure online environment that you know will remain private. Because LinkedIn is much more accepted as a business social network due its professional user base, potential dentists and business generally feel much more comfortable with it as a platform through which to conduct business. Could this be the reason you focus your social-media strategy predominantly on LinkedIn?
AVOID – The biggest criticism that can be directed at LinkedIn is that it is not a social as Facebook and Twitter – but then it isn’t really meant to be. It is primarily directed at business people, and therefore the sheer quantity of users is going to be minimised, therefore limiting the rate at which a brand can expand on this social network. Some have also accused LinkedIn of being a glorified LinkedIn aggregator, as often topics are submitted or contributed to through Twitter, and this generates a lot of the conversations. If you are hoping to share your brand with a mass market, then LinkedIn might not be the social network for you.
SNOG MARRY AVOID
So, there you have it. Now I’ve said my piece, why don’t you fill in our form and tell us about the choices you would make if you had to choose one social network as your social-media platform:
Facebook:
- Snog
- Marry
- Avoid
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Twitter:
- Snog
- Marry
- Avoid
View Results
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LinkedIn:
- Snog
- Marry
- Avoid
View Results
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