How to Use Social Media for Your Security Business

Business of Security Podcast

Security Business owners that use social media have to do more than just “be on” social media networks in order grow their business. There are so many ways in which to use the tool of Social Media. There is more to social media than casually chatting with friends or sharing news items ad infinitum.

In this podcast episode, I share several ways in which you can use social media for your security business.

Business relationship building – more commonly known as networking and one of the dominating uses of social media. Facebook and Linkedin are by far the most common social media networks used for networking. Join groups that focus on your industry and business goals. Connect with like-minded individuals. Now is the time not to be a lurker. Share your knowledge, your history and learn from others.

Brand building – determine and find your target audience. Conduct searches using Google or Bing and find where your audience hangs their virtual hats. Establish your brand on those social networks and engage your audience. Share your knowledge, skill, expertise and provide meaningful valuable content to your audience. The content can be informational, analytical, or help solve a problem. No one wants to see and read promotional post after promotional post. You will immediately turn off your audience so it is always better to give more than you receive. Use the 80/20 rule: 20 percent self-promotion, 80 percent providing useful information. Be conversational and relatable. Your audience will start to understand who you are, what you do, and who you do it for.

Chatting with like-minded individuals – This is probably a given but it is listed as it is a business use. Informally casually chatting about a particular problem, news story, helping to solve a problem, and sharing your opinions. This helps build your brand and may lead to other networking opportunities.

Pro tip: Find and join Twitter chats called Tweet chats. These are conducted at scheduled times, usually with a host, sometimes with a guest, and have a specific hashtag to follow the conversation.

Customer Support – there are several brands using social media for customer service. Nike, Dell, and Blackberry to name a few, are listening to customer’s issues, rants and trying to help solve their problems. My two experiences were with Comcast and GoDaddy and both were on Twitter. In the Comcast instance, I was complaining about moving back to Boston and having to deal with Comcast, within minutes, Comcast responded and asked if I had a specific problem with the service, I said no thank you, but you’ll be hearing from me after I move. The GoDaddy instance was more recently when I was encountering a problem with my website and a representative jumped in to help resolve the issue.

Marketing – You read and hear me speak marketing on social media quite a bit because it is very effective if done wisely. Marketing your security business and brand on social media is a necessity to control your brand, build trust, solve problems, and share the value of your services. Social media marketing is likened to Word of Mouth Marketing on steroids because of the virality of the reach. With one tweet you can reach hundreds of people a few who could be potential customers. One Facebook post about the quality of your security services can be shared exponentially by shares and likes.

Learning/Sharing knowledge – Educators can teach students. Online webinars, Google plus hangouts, live video on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube, are all ways to interact with others visually, “face to face”, to share and gain knowledge.

Research – social media is awash with statistics. Visit places like Pinterest and look for infographics on particular subjects. Slideshare has tens of thousands of PowerPoint presentations on various subjects. Still stuck, go to Twitter and pose a question.

Intelligence/Monitoring – You should be monitoring what people think of you and say about your security business and your competitors. There are so many tools out there to monitor various subjects like your brand, your business, keywords or phrases that keep you updated on news and events in your niche or industry. You can’t just have one but Mention at a rather decent price is my top choice but free tools like Google alerts, and individual social media network searches work just as well.

Links mentioned

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook on Amazon

Security Marketing Solutions YouTube Channel

The post How to Use Social Media for Your Security Business appeared first on Strategic Marketing Solutions.