There are more ways for businesses to communicate with clients and prospective clients than ever before, and most of them are easily accessible and easy to use. Social media sites offer businesses a low-cost or no-cost platform to talk to customers, promote and inform. As an added bonus, these sites have been in use for personal purposes for a while now, so people – both business owners and consumers – generally know how to use them.
Small business owners, though, the ones who don’t have legal and marketing departments, may not be aware of a few important facts. Possibly the most important thing to know about sites like Facebook is that you do not own the content you post there. Facebook can make changes as they see fit. They can put your content into an aggregated feed. They can remove your business’ page, without warning, for hosting an unauthorized contest or giveaway.
A careful reading of Facebook’s TOS may have you worried about even starting a Page for your business. You probably should. It gives you one more way to meet your customers or clients where they are, and to learn more about what they need and want and how you can help. However, you should not make your Facebook Page your primary online “home.”
Everything you do online for your business should direct your clients and prospects back to your site. If you guest post for someone else, you want a link to your own site, right? If someone visits your Facebook Page, it should be similar to reading a guest post. It should make them want to check out your site, too.
The same goes for Twitter. Everything you post on Twitter that isn’t a Direct Message (DM) is indexed by search engines. There is no extra step you took to make that happen and there is no step you can take to prevent it (other than closing your account, of course), because Twitter owns the content and has decided to make it public. Handled properly, this is a very good thing for business owners. You just need to be aware of it and make sure that in your Twitter stream and most certainly in your bio there are references and links back to your own website.
On your own site, though, you are in control. The best analogy I’ve heard to describe the difference in social media sites and your own site is that it is like renting vs. owning a home. If you make your Facebook Page your main hub of online communication, you are renting the space and the owner – Mark Zuckerberg in this case – calls the shots about what can go on there. Your web site is your own little piece of cyberspace. If you don’t like a comment someone leaves on a blog post, YOU get to call the shots and remove it.
Businesses, large and small, would be foolish to ignore the arsenal of tools available online, but it is equally foolish to use those tools without understanding how they work and to whom they belong. If you are confounded by how to go about building your own site or how to use social media to your best advantage you have options. You can pay someone to help. You can put in the time and brain power it takes to figure it all out. You can find a mentor who might be willing to give you advice. Just don’t go flailing around blindly at the risk of your business.
About
Denise Gabbard is a writer and online marketing professional. She works with small businesses to help them increase their online presence and traffic to their websites and businesses.
