Why it's vital to keep that fresh feeling

You wouldn't let the contents of your fridge, or your bathroom cabinet go stale, would you? Any decorator will tell you that failing to wash old paint off brushes is bad for them. And any tradesman would say that failing to buy fresh materials often enough could mean a job isn't up to standard.

So why let your social media go stale?

Too many businesses, particularly sole traders, neglect their social media. They have a website built, stick a couple of videos and a profile on it, then leave it for nine months to go off. They start a blog, spend all afternoon writing one 400-word post, think 'blimey, that was hard work,' so they don't do it again.

Or worst of all, they pay someone to do their blogs for them, then don't return emails from that person, don't answer their phone calls and generally make it impossible for the blog-writer to do the necessary research. They then complain that the writer isn't doing what he's being paid for, at which point the relationship collapses and they are back to square one. I speak from bitter personal experience about that, by the way; what made it worse was that the person employing me worked for most of the day in a shed deep in the Home Counties countryside with negligible broadband and a pitiful phone signal; as a result, he was often engrossed in his work and blissfully unaware that I was chasing him while the deadline which he had imposed on me for the blog got nearer and nearer.....

Search engines love new content; it stands to reason that fresh content is more interesting to readers than a blog which hasn't been touched for months. It's the way they decide which websites to feature at the top end of their rankings. This is particularly important for small businesses, of course. If a potential customer is searching online for, say, a plumber and the first one they come across has a lively website with well-written blog posts, videos of the plumber's work and indications that he is generally active on social media, they will simply choose him and stop searching. It should be simple, but too many small businesses don't get it.

Some do, of course; The most obvious example is a florist I know. She lives more than 100 miles from me, I will almost certainly never use her services, but she is incredibly active on social media. She posts pictures of her bouquets on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Instagram, starts conversations on all sorts of subjects (not just about work) and gets involved in discussions. She understands that if she comments on a conversation I am having with any of my 1,100 friends on Facebook or my 900 LinkedIn connections, her name will spread around that conversational tree.

And there is a fair chance that a part of that tree will be populated by someone who does live in her area, who might be looking for a florist and who could be a potential customer; which is better - to spend some time each day doing that, or spend an hour a day aggressively waiting for the phone to ring, or spend an hour a day making bad cold-calls?

I don't even know if the florist in question has a blog, by the way. I just know that the way she creates content, by getting involved in conversations, posting content in the form of pictures of her work and generally giving the impression of being everywhere, all the time (even though she isn't) has done wonders for her business.

Compare that with the tradesman who 'is too busy' to blog because he is always on the job (apparently), has no website (or arguably worse, a bad website) or pays someone to do his social media then goes missing when needed.

Which of these two opposites are you? And which one should you be?

If you require any further support with getting the most out of your social media then head on over to www.northwestbusinesshub.co.uk. There you will be able to see all of the Hubs services.

#socialmedia #content