Communal RESOURCE Now that the novelty of social media has worn off, it’s time to use it as a resource to help build and promote interaction with customers. By: Amanda Martini-Hughes, assistant editor Social Media As A S Amanda Martini-Hughes is the assistant editor of Cleaning & Maintenance Management magazine. A graduate from Siena College, she can be reached at AMartini-Hughes@ EBSCO.com. Since joining the publication, Martini-Hughes has worked on numerous industry articles and is responsible for populating the industry’s only daily electronic news-letter, CM e-News Daily. Chat online: Facebook.com/ CMMOnline and Twitter. com/CMeNewsDaily. Social media outlets are ideal for networking and communicating business ideas or ideas of any kind really, but most users don’t know the proper strat-egy to maximize their efforts and go from simply using social media, to using it to their advantage. When social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter first came into existence, they were novelties. Users had to learn how to use them, and more often than not, they weren’t aware of the wide range of uses for social media along with its complexity. By discussing the type of content that should be shared on various social media platforms, along with posting frequencies and commonly commit-ted faux pas, companies can be armed with the tools they need to become social media mavens. The Humanizing Effect The very first thing anyone handling social media needs to know is exactly what is acceptable to post, and what has no place floating around your company profile. Because social media allows for such a wide range of content opportunities, knowing what your audience is receptive to is even more important. “JanSan manufactures and distributors should look for content that is helpful, interesting and even funny. Tips are always great, as is information about products and services,” explains Robert Kravitz, president of AlturaSolutions Communications. “Content should not only express what your company and proposition stands for and repre-sents, but should also be information that appeals to your audience,” adds Leah Runge, marketing director for AFFLINK’s eLev8 process. It is important to keep in mind that, not only should you use your chosen social media platform to share information to purely inform your audi-ence, it should also be a forum for conversation, ideas and networking. for more info Visit www.cmmonline.com and type in search keyword: Social Media . For more information on related products, visit www.cmmonline.com , select SUPPLIER SEARCH from the main navigation bar, and enter keyword: Networking . Posts and/or tweets should fun, as well as informa-tional, and open ended in order to foster communica-tion and discussion that could end up being benefi-cial to, not only the users, but to your company. Before the Internet and the advent of social media, end users had very little contact with the companies they did business with, unless it was through a sales rep or, under the least desirable of circumstances, to complain. In the increasingly technological age that we now live in, that is rapidly changing. End users want to be able to connect with the companies and brands that they use, and frequently look to their presence on the Internet as an indica-tion of how well the company knows what its users are looking for. “Feel free to post stories and pictures of company events. One of the benefits of social media is that end users can view manufacturers, not as big, cold corporations, but as a group of people, just like you and me, doing a job and doing their best to help others,” says Kravitz. It is important for a company, or anyone in charge of being the social media face of a company, to be careful not to say anything against a competitor. It is easy to let the fingers fly and type out the first thing that comes to your mind, but it can be seen as poor form for one company to “bash” another. “If one of the ‘Fans’ on a Facebook page says something against a competitor, that is his or her viewpoint,” says Kravitz. “But, if it goes too far or is too derogatory, the Facebook administrator should consider remov-ing it.” Be Seen And Heard Having a healthy social media presence is no longer a suggestion, it is practically a requirement for good business. 16 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • March 2013
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