Social Media Business

Are you wondering how social media business can help you to grow your business?

It is so simple; don’t think as a social media marketing instead consider it as a social media business.

Here is how you can get lots of business using social media.

In a business there are following six core sets of disciplines you need to follow for a successful operation:

• Research
• Product Development
• Marketing
• Sales
• Production & Delivery
• Customer Services

Can you recall any business doing really well without all of the above components?

I seriously doubt it.

Social media business is no different. I think if any business wants to flourish in the crowded market place, should be good in all of the above core disciplines.

Sacrificing the importance of any single aspect mentioned above can ruin your whole business efforts.

For example if you are really good at research, product development, marketing, sales, production and not concentrating on providing high quality customer services then I would say you are putting your whole business at risk.

This is why running a business is not an easy thing to do.

Similarly if you are interested in social media business or want to increase leads for your business using social media you have to follow the following core disciplines of social media business.

Leaving or scarifying the quality of any of the following core pillars of social media business can affect your whole efforts.

#1 Listening

This should be your first step when jumping into social media business. It is like doing your research before starting any business.

You can listen to your target audience using many different tools such as:

• Google Alerts
• Twitter Search
• Hootsuit
• Radian 6

Listening can affect your results immensely because all of your upcoming actions will be based on your listening.

You need to be crystal clear about the problems of your customers before you can find solutions to those problems.

It will not help you, if you assume and try to solve their issues which they are not facing.

Therefore, listening to your customers on the social web will give you first hand information about the issues your customer’s are facing often in real time and will give you the chance to jump into it and provide the solutions.

For example:

You are running a Lebanese restaurant in London.

A tourist who doesn’t know a good local Lebanese restaurant, thanks to smart phones can seek help using social channels such as Twitter and in this case tourist can tweet to their network some thing like “any one knows any good Lebanese restaurant in London?”

If you have robust listening system in place you can immediately respond to that tweet, “hey we are a xyz Lebanese restaurant and running a special if you would like to try, here are the details (link to your website)”.

This is just a one example of many ways you can use social tools to listen to your customers in real time.

#2 Consistent Presence

This is another important fundamental of running any business.

You have to show up consistently depending on the business but often it is at least 5 days a week.

Can you run a business and show up whenever you like?

If yes, I would love to hear in the comments below.

In my opinion you can’t, majority of the businesses require consistent attention and certain things you need to do on a daily basis.

And this is the biggest mistake people do when they start social media business. They think they will start a social media business, create accounts, show up few days and that’s it.

Can you see my point?

You are free to use social media as you like but if you want business out of it then I am afraid you got treat it as a business.

#3 Quality

This is where it all gets really exited.

You listened to your customers and ready to be visible consistently on social network (s).

How can you provide quality help to your customers?

You can do this with “Content”.

This is why Michael Stelzner says in his book Launch (affiliate link) that content is the fuel of your social media rocket ship.

Without content your rocket ship cannot move forward.

Type of content you can share:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Pictures
• Slides

Core element of any content you will be sharing is lot different than traditional marketing.

When sharing content with your network, you should not forget that people on social networks don’t like to be sold.

Yes, this is the reality and a challenge for you as a business.

But most businesses bombard people on social networks with their brochures, when they first start social media efforts.

You got to understand the culture of social web and need to learn how to take people from social networks to your blog or website to buy your stuff.

Are you ready to start social media business?

Feel free to share your experience or ask question in the comments below.