The theory is that the world of online communication and networking sites began as a personal trend for people to stay in touch and then developed into a world for both personal correspondence and business use. Is this really the case though, and did the social element of these sites actually come first? When we think back fondly to the days of MySpace it is plain to see that a large proportion of the profiles on MySpace were by various types or artist or musical talent and they simply used the site as a way to promote their skill, talent or business venture. When looked at like that it is difficult to distinguish which came first.
There is no mistaking that as the social networking world developed and we were introduced to the phenomenon that is Facebook, we saw a much more social side to these websites. A mixture of MySpace and Friends Reunited, this site was set to take the world by storm. It is still as popular as ever, yet with a strong focus on business profiles and groups, not to mention one of the best ways for a business to generate interest and conversation regarding themselves. Facebook has become the site for everyone and has so many uses it is difficult to know what it is actually designed for anymore.
Twitter is a funny old networking site – hugely popular from a social point of view, but nobody can deny that the majority of Twitter profiles seem to be hugely concerned with self promotion. Whether it is in an individual or a business profile, asking people to ‘follow you’ requires you to have a unique selling point (USP) to entice new followers to your profile.
A lot of companies decide to embark on a SMM strategy as they have learnt about the benefits it can have on brand message and business development. The problem is however, that because a lot of employees and staff members use social networking sites in their personal life, they presume it will be easy to manage one for business. The golden rule here is not to mix business with pleasure, and this applies heavily to social networking sites. At SEO company SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk, we are experts at social media marketing and can help you with your SMM campaign.
No matter how large or small your business is you should always ensure the business name has a separate profile all of its own. Too often it can be tempting or just easier to promote your company through a personal profile page or create a group or forum surrounding the topic or industry. That is not to say that your personal account cannot be linked to the professional site, it should just be done with caution.
For example, imagine your company profile on Twitter following personal profiles of staff members. Any time a person tweets about something personal, anyone linked to the business profile can see this. Consider some of the tweets people post and you will soon realise that keeping personal and professional networking separate can be a good idea after all.
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Posted by Phil.
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