It seems like everyone is using social media these days… Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace… well, everyone IS on social media these days. Are you?

Perhaps you have a personal Facebook, but does your business have a Facebook Page? How about a Twitter? More importantly, WHY do you need these things? Isn’t it just more work?

Creating social media profiles for your business does entail some work and time, but it’s worth it. Everyone is on social media sites, right?… so why WOULDN’T you put your business right where everyone is looking? At the very least, you should have a Facebook Page, a Twitter, a LinkedIn, and a blog. Thankfully, there are solutions available so that once everything is set-up, you can update all of your social media sites at once from ONE location. You can tie your Facebook to your Twitter, and your Twitter to your LinkedIn. You could also look into services like Ping.fm.

More reasons to create social media pages for your business:

• Facebook Pages are automatically indexed by Google (hello SEO!)
• Public Twitter pages are also automatically indexed by Google
• LinkedIn… you guessed it, indexed by Google!
• It’s FREE! You can spend money if you want to, but you can get a lot done without spending a penny
• You can build relationships with current and future clients
• Receive customer service and feedback to improve your business
• Backlinks! If you’re interested in improving your website’s SEO, setting up social media sites allows you to create backlinks leading to your site

Some things to note:

• A Facebook PAGE is not the same thing as a Facebook PROFILE. If you want to set-up your business on Facebook, it is suggested that you create a PAGE for it for search engine indexing and allowing people to “Like” it.
• All of your social media sites should have brand continuity. Use the same profile photos and brand colors as much as you can. This creates a sense of professionalism and organization, which in turn will create a sense of trustworthiness.
• Once your social media sites are set-up, USE THEM. They don’t work if you just set them up and let the sit. Look for interesting articles to post links to or write about, point visitors to good resources, and talk about your business!

Of course, if you truly are too busy to maintain your own social media marketing, there is a solution: get someone else to do it for you. Bergey Creative Group offers a social media marketing plan that will get you set-up on each social media site with consistent branding, and we’ll even update your social media on a regular basis with the goal of building an audience.

For more information, contact us!
215.256.4512 or tomb@bergeycreativegroup.com

(Map of Online Communities from xkcd.com)