I think carefully before recommending something to a friend. I hate it if something goes wrong for them after I said it worked well for me. Think of a great restaurant, builder, book, doctor, and so on. I always pay more attention when a recommendation is made to me by a friend. It does vary: I have some friends that have owned, rented, renovated, and sold many houses, so I respect their opinions far more than others on the same subject. But the general point remains – if a friend recommended something, and I respect their opinion, then that’s social proof which dramatically increases my trust in whatever it is I am asking about. A lot of social media marketing is about how to capitalise on the existing groups of people that like and use your product to influence those who do not currently do so. There are many dimensions to this and quite a lot of sophistication in the field – experts exist and should be consulted. But there are some basics which count.
- A properly though out company name and logo
- A decent website and LinkedIn profile
- Probably something on at least one of Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, depending on whether you are B2B or B2C
- A good business card – still remains valuable, although I expect its days are numbered
- Some changing content – some new material that you post, which elevates your site above the level of ‘electronic business card’
- A commitment to checking and staying up to date – you need a process. Notifications to your smartphone make this easy, as do good office process.
- A plan: how you engage, when people want things, when they complain, what to do with trolls, how you manage spam
If you have an idea of how this activity feeds into the actual business of how someone becomes a client of your business – preferably written down in your marketing plan – then you will be well on the way. Making the existing social proof for your business more easily accessible to the other people who might like to get those results for themselves is a service, and good marketing.