Is Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc. really worthwhile for business?

[Rhyl Lightworks]

I have joined many of these sites (many more than are listed here) in the past, on advice that they would increase visitors to websites, made one post and lost interest - I can't even remember what passwords I used on some of them.

I find that I have more work than I can cope with without them, and wonder if they have any effectiveness. Maybe it depends on the type of site you are trying to promote. Mine are shopping sites.

Barrie

 

[KidsBeeHappy]

Use some automated tools, and get blog entries to automatically update twitter etc.
Or vice versa. Personally, I don't think facebook works from a business persepective. Having a five way conversation with friends in different parts of the UK who are never online at the same time, yes. But business - nope!

 

[Jeff FV]

I find that I have more work than I can cope with without them,

Hi Barrie

I think you've answered your own question there, unless, of course you want to expand.

and wonder if they have any effectiveness. Maybe it depends on the type of site you are trying to promote. Mine are shopping sites.

Barrie

They can be used effectively - we use all 3: Twitter, Blog & Facebook and there is no doubt that each channel has brought us custom that we wouldn't have otherwise have.

However, like everything, there is no magic bullet and you have to work at it (so may not be worth your while as you are doing well without it.) You need to target your audience and give them something they will be interested in.

Here's how you could use it:

Picking a product of yours at random, your colour changing LED lights, you could write a short blog post (or just an info piece on your main site) showing how and where they could be used, with lots of pretty pictures (we've discovered that our blog posts that have pictures of the inside of our house or studio are always the most popular - people are intrinsically nosey!) which then links to to the page on which you sell these products. You'd then tweet about the blog post - saying something like "A cool way to lighten your room (link to blog post)"

The important thing is that you are not using Twitter to (directly) sell your products, but giving a link to an article that your followers may like to view - which builds your authority as an 'expert' and may lead them to your site.

Hope the above may be of use, to either Barrie or anyone else.

 

[mattrepreneur]

With regards to the 'chore' of updating social networking sites, there's many services that offer the ability to integrate all social services into one - so you can access Twitter, Facebook etc. through one easy-to-use application. Brizzly is a decent solution just to name one off the top of my head.

I believe social networking is fast becoming a great medium to promote your business, products & services. I think it's important to understand that if the consumer is there, so should you - Twitter is perhaps the most-commonly used social media service for communication between business & consumer and provides a great place to build customer-loyalty and promote brand awareness.

However in terms of direct sales (as mentioned by the user above), I think it's more appropriate to build a base of users who are interested in your products and services, and promote them through means of blog posts which could explain how they're used, examples of other people using them and that could be your 'sales pitch'.

With social media becoming evermore an integral part of life, I think the early birds will catch the worm.

 

[tony84]

Use some automated tools, and get blog entries to automatically update twitter etc.
Or vice versa. Personally, I don't think facebook works from a business persepective. Having a five way conversation with friends in different parts of the UK who are never online at the same time, yes. But business - nope!

Maybe its more suited to some businesses than others but my mum owns a pub, every Saturday we have a singer on. Every week we send a message out advertising what is on plus anything else thats on (champions League final, comedy night etc etc). Only lastnight 1 of our customers said their daughter is a member of our group and lets them know whats on each week.

 

[Beachcomber]

I've often wondered if these sites would be useful for a business that only operates in the local area?

I cover an area of approx 25miles in radius - pretty much excluding 99% of all other UK users.

Is it viable to spend time on these sites if you are not trading nationally / internationally?

 

[mattrepreneur]

I've often wondered if these sites would be useful for a business that only operates in the local area?

I cover an area of approx 25miles in radius - pretty much excluding 99% of all other UK users.

Is it viable to spend time on these sites if you are not trading nationally / internationally?

If you're looking to expand into other areas it could be worth the time. If you're working in a small area I wouldn't think the time put in would produce any noticeable results.

Although saying that, I do know a coffee shop here in Manchester that takes orders online via Twitter and the customer can then pickup their order without waiting in the queue. Great initiative and very popular amongst commuters.

 

[AllAboutLoans]

In my opinion, all social networking sites are good to use providing you are working within a niche that is regularly talked about. We obviously do a hell of a lot of social networking/bookmarking because people regularly blog about finance/loans/credit cards so we need to capture this audience. If you do your research you can find out levels of social interest (to be fair its common sense!)