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How to make your business soar on social networks

Posted on 19 Mar 2009 at 16:27

Likewise, if your updates are too frequent or simply boring, you'll alienate your followers. Getting this balance right is crucial.

Because it's so easy to get things wrong it's important that you control your social-networking updates, and don't allow just anyone within the company to publish. If you feed all updates through someone with proven communication, marketing and technical skills then there's less chance of things going awry.

Alternatively you could employ an external agency, but do check their track record as some declare themselves "experts" after playing with Twitter for only a day or so.

Another very important rule is to avoid trying to be something you're not. You might think that rather than joining a network as XYZ Ltd, it would be better to create a few dummy accounts pretending to be happy customers of XYZ, and using those to big-up your products and services. Trouble is, there's a sizeable chance that you'll get found out, and when that happens you'll find that social networks are the perfect hotbed for schadenfeude and the dissemination of bad news. Remember what happened when Belkin got caught paying for positive user reviews? The rapid spread of that story was mainly down to Facebook and Twitter users.

If you're sensible and careful, and if you take time to understand the communities and follow their dynamic changes over time, then social networking can be a vital business tool.

And in the true spirit of social media, please feel free to add your own tips and an advice in the comments section below.

Author: Paul Ockenden