Social Media For Business: An FAQ Series | Choosing the Right Tool

What are the right social media tools to use for business?

The ” Social Media for Business: An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) series” is born out of my interaction with people IRL (in real life) and from work experience. The answer to the above question in regard to choosing the right tool  will be published in two parts, and we begin with a typical scenario.

A Social Media For Business Foray Story

Company Wazzup is in business for years and hears about the potentials of social media for their business. They, therefore, signed up for Facebook because “everybody’s on Facebook.” They, also signed up for other social media accounts. Everyday they show up online and interact and share posts.  They, later, realized that social media is like a bottomless pit that needs to be fed and filled everyday.  They  find it overwhelmingly demanding and that its performance is underwhelming. After giving it some time, they concluded that it’s a total waste of time, so they decided to pull the plug.

There ends the foray.

Does this story resonate with you?

Who is the FAQ series for?

This is for you if you are:

1. A new user.
2. On the fence about it.
3. Going on in circles with what you are doing in social media
4. One of those trying to find an answer to the question about right tools
5. Your business is online because it’s the buzz. You just have to be “there” and you don’t want to be left behind.

We hear social media thrown in many times in conversations, don’t we?

Is that Facebook?

Personally, I have assumed that everyone knows what it is; however, when I introduce myself to  people telling them that I work as a Social Media Strategist, I often get this question, What is Social Media? Is that Facebook? Google defines it as:

While, Wiki defines it as:

…the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks.

In other words, social media is a tool that allows anybody to interact with everybody. The conversations are immediate, relevant and transparent. The social media landscape is larger than  what we think. And no, it is not just Facebook nor Twitter. The image below doest does not cover everything! There are many types of social media platforms. To name a few:

1. Microblogging – Twitter dominates this realm. There’s Tumblr, also.
2. Forums and similar type – Yahoo Groups,  newsgroups and discussion boards?
3. Social Networking Sites – Facebook, Twitter, Weibo, Ning, Flixter, Badoo, etc
4. Media Sharing – YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, etc.
5. Content Curation – Pearltrees, Scoop.it, etc.
6. Bookmarking Sites – Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, etc.
7. Review Sites – Yelp, Tripadvisor, etc.

Given the above types of social media tools, a question that is often asked is this: what tool is right for my business?

Social Media for Business  Tool Selection

If, when you joining either platforms, that was/is the first question you asked, then you have put the cart before the horse. The tool selection process only follows when you have already determined answers to either of the following questions. It comes LATER.

• Who is your target audience?
• What are your goals?

Tool selection is NOT the first step.This is where we will end this topic, and next week’s social media for business series will pick up where we left off!  Stay tuned! If there are questions you like covered in this series, feel free to ask below.