Meet social media Sarah. When it comes to her personal social media pages she never misses an opportunity for a stellar status update. She’s a great Facebook friend. She’s terrific at Twitter. Her LinkedIn profile is professional. Her Instagram is incredible. She manages all of her personal social media accounts flawlessly. It’s fun for her and she’s good at it, which is why she thinks she could do it as a career, no problem.
Poor Sarah. She doesn’t know that there are some big differences between social media for personal and business use. She needs social media consulting if she’s going to even think about doing it professionally.
What’s the Difference?
The biggest difference when it comes to social media for personal and business use is this:
- You spend time on social media for personal use to pass the time
- You invest time on social media for business use to improve your company
There are other differences too. But first, let’s go back into Sarah’s world again.
Sarah checks any given social media platform each time she sees a new notification on her phone that someone liked her post on Facebook, commented on her status, sent her a connection or retweeted her Tweet. This could easily happen a hundred times a day for Sarah.
As she’s scrolling through her newsfeed, she sees someone’s political rant and makes a comment without even thinking. Then, she sees the latest video of her best friend’s brother’s baby walking for the first time. Followed by a meme, a silly quiz about who you were in another life (which she takes and reposts), cute random photos of puppies (like!), and a Pinterest recipe for Oreo peanut butter brownies - #sorrynotsorry.
Sarah then updates her status: “Just took a quiz that said I was Joan of Arc in another life. Time to go make some Oreo peanut butter brownies!”
Social media consulting is more than knowing how to use each platform. It’s also knowing what to post and when, how to analyze what’s working and what’s not, recognizing trends, and engaging with the right people.
Sarah is a pro when it comes to social media for personal use:
- She’s getting regularly updated on whatever is going on in her newsfeed
- She’s reacting to what she sees
- She’s talking about herself and what she’s up to
- She’s spending ample amounts of time on social media
Why would all of that be bad when it comes to social media for business use?
- A business should be doing the updating
- A business should be engaging and interacting – not reacting
- A business should use the 80/20 rule
- A business should have a social media strategy in place
There is no one size fits all when it comes to a social media strategy. The 80/20 rule is probably the closest there is, which is a generally accepted rule that social media posts should be:
A social media consulting company knows that social media works differently for each industry and each individual business for that matter. For example, Instagram might work great for a local bakery that posts the day’s goodies for sale each morning, but there probably aren’t many interesting photos a law office would want to post.
You probably don’t have the time to spend on social media like Sarah does, so when you do, you want to make sure you’re doing it right.
A social media consultant can help your business put together the right strategy and navigate you through the constant changes social media evolves through.
If you’re in need of social media consulting, contact us at Half a Bubble Out!
