Richard Norman from Yatter gives some tips on Social Media for SMEs and his 6 tips for going online.
SOCIAL MEDIA
- Validation -> people will validate you based on what they see on social media. It might be numbers, it might be quantity or quality of content or it might be activity. Being active, if only occasionally is one of the biggest validation checks. You don’t want to look like you are shut.
- Variation -> pick up a newspaper and you see a varied array of different sizes, colours and images to catch your eye. The human brain hates monotony. Go to a social media feed you post on and scroll down it. If the content you post looks visually the same time and time again then you have an issue. It’s as much about varying the type (text, video, image, link) as it is about the underlying content meaning.
SMALL BUSINESS STARTUP ADVICE-6 TIPS TO REMEMBER
1.Register your business on Google Business
If you are a small business where customers visit your premises then this is essential as it puts you on Google Maps. You register on the site, they send out the card then you fill in the code. The Business Gateway or Google Digital Garage can help with this.
2. Tune up your website for performance -> GTMetix
Want to know how efficient your website is? Plug the URL into this website. It measures how efficient (not how fast) your online presence is. Google hates it when you waste users time and make them wait for no reason. Show them that you are competent and worthy of listing in their search engine. Yes, they are paying attention.
3. Get your site crawled by Google with Google Search Console
Search Console (formerly Webmaster tools) is the way you talk to the search algorithm of Google. It’s quite technical but you can get feedback on errors that Google has with your site. Obviously you want to fix those errors. You can also initiate a crawl from here and also submit a sitemap (do both when a new site goes live).
4. Get reasonable hosting and encrypt your website traffic (SSL)
Your website should be encrypted to secure user information. You should host it on equipment capable of responding quickly. Your website should be responsive. Google requires that you do these things in order to be taken seriously.
5. Get your navigation right.
When a user comes to your site they are looking for something. If you take them to that thing as quickly and painlessly as possible then they are more likely to buy it. Sometimes different types of users want different things and so we categorise stuff to make it easier for them to find. Understand what users want and how to clearly show them how to get it. In technical circles the name for this art is User Experience but it’s all rooted in thinking about your site navigation.
6. Setup your social media and make sure people can reach it from your site. Use Yatter to manage it.
Social media and websites are all an interlocked world. Some traffic will flow between. Always makes sure you have links prominently from your website to your social media. Likewise your social media should be constantly referencing your website to give users an obvious route to further enquiry. Yatter makes is easier to maintain that message while also keeping it fresh.
For more information on Yatter please check out:-