I recommend employing Facebook to every business I speak with. Implementing its power is one of the most effective things a business can do to introduce itself to the community. That introduction can serve as the bridge for a long on going relationship. The saying goes, people buy people. That is kind of true. The real truth is people buy personalities. Social media is one of the greatest ways for you to introduce and exercise your brands personality. If done well, your business can not only introduce its culture through social media, it can also offer lifelong customers. Facebook isn’t a culture in and of itself. It’s a blank canvas waiting for you to let your culture be known all over its walls.
A few weeks ago I had the chance to teach a college class on effective social media. I asked them “what is the most effective form of advertising?” We got all sorts of answers. Everything from “TV” to “internet”. Finally they started to get it and started to yell out “word of mouth”. That’s it. Pure and simple. That’s what makes social media superior to other forms of advertising. It’s a natural, organic way to empower people to share their stories.
People discover all kinds of great things through word of mouth marketing. New restaurants to eat at, movies to see and places to workout just to name a few. Take that and multiply it by a few hundred (or a lot more in some cases) and youve got word of mouth marketing though social media.
Social media is more efficient than mass emails at getting the word out quickly. A good social media outlet does much more to convey culture than a mailer ever could. Billboards, TV commercials and radio spots are extremely expensive. For much, much cheaper you could run an effective Facebook ads campaign. When considering where to spend advertising time and dollars think of social media.
Larah is a blogger for Smith Monitoring, the leader in Houston home security systems. Read her blog on Social Media, working from home, and SEO.