Social media is now commonplace in business with most involving it in their marketing strategies. It is one of the easiest and cheapest ways for businesses, of all sizes, to put themselves in front of potential and current customers. Each social media outlet gives you the opportunity to talk to and interact with people so that you can promote your products and grow your presence within your chosen marketplace – but it takes work and careful thought. We’ve put together some of our top tips to help you get started on social media…

Be sociable – The whole point of social media is to interact, so you have to be active on your social media channels – you don’t gain anything from setting up a social media page or account and then doing nothing with it. Post regularly and encourage interaction with your posts by asking questions.

Be approachable – Make your page professional so that people can recognise it as your business’ page – so use your branding! Remember, any social media profile or page is representing your business, so make sure that it does so in the best way possible.

Be interesting and relevant – When you post on your sites, make sure it’s something that your target audience will be interested in and is useful information to them. Posting about what you’re having for dinner is not likely to get someone interested in your IT company, is it?

Be visual – It’s proven that people respond more to images rather than written content on social media, so as and when you have imagery from your business, share it!

Choose relevant platforms – Find out how your customers and target customers use social media and ensure that you’re active on their chosen platforms. You may think it’s a good idea to cover all bases and create profiles on every outlet available, but this could end up in you spreading yourself too thinly and not really adding any value.