Benham Publishing Businesss Magazines February 2014 | Page 36

PatronsView Follow me, follow you Social media is here to stay. It seems to evolve at an increasing speed and forms a major part of the fabric of a lot of organisations. But how do businesses best embrace this new phenomenon? A good approach is to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve out of it. Meaningful goals might include: David Butterworth Managing Director Wheawill & Sudworth Limited 01484 423691 [email protected] www.wheawills.co.uk • New business It is easy to get new business but securing quality over quantity is more of a challenge. A more considered and informative approach to social media often produces the best results. For example, LinkedIn has been a great source of the right sort of new revenue for my firm. • Communication If you are looking to make some sort of contact with new people and businesses, Twitter is quick and easy way to get started. Keeping up with your followers might be a different story though! • Information To impart information to customers and contacts, a decent website is still good value for money. Distributing apps can be an immediate and well received option. If important developments are taking place in your sector, keeping people advised via a professional and userfriendly app is five star communication. • Image Having some social media outlets can also be an effective way of creating and promoting the right sort of image for your business. It doesn’t have to be cutting edge. The important point is to be seen to be au fait with change and to be leveraging opportunities out of it for the mutual benefit of you and your customers. Don’t be anti-social When someone utters the words ‘social media’ to you, how do you react? Are you comparing numbers of waves for yours, the fundamental time consuming as you want it to be. Twitter followers or just left benefits from having a social media Initiatives such as wondering why some people see the presence can be significant. #YorkshireHour on Twitter are a At the Wildcats it’s hugely important great way of networking every to us and as well as our main club Wednesday from 8-9pm and whilst it accounts on Facebook and Twitter doesn’t beat face-to-face interaction, Whether you love it, hate it or can’t that each allow us to reach over it’s another way to get yourself out quite work out how to use it, it’s 10,000 people, our commercial, something that’s not going to go retail and lottery departments all need to post almost every meal they have on Instagram (a photo sharing site, in case you’re wondering)? there and ‘meet’ potential clients. away anytime soon. Whichever Andy Morgan Media and Marketing Manager Wakefield Wildcats 01924 211611 [email protected] www.wakefieldwildcats.co.uk 36 CLOSEUP Winter 2013 have their own Twitter handles that So, the next time someone asks you category you fall into, there’s one means they can respond to relevant about social media, make sure you thing you should do with social queries via an official source and respond by directing them to your media – embrace it. target a specific audience. company’s Twitter or Facebook Each business is of course different, You shouldn’t be frightened about page. Just make sure you don’t post and whilst it may not cause great using social media and it’s only as what you had for dinner on there…