How To Use Social Media For Good In Your Business

Social media is everywhere and whether you like it or not, it's here to stay. You may have an opinion on it. You may be a fan and you may not be, but know that social media can be a huge tool in your personal life and in your business. Smart business owners are able to use social media to connect, grow their business, build their brand, and really use social media for good. First of all, I want to give you some numbers. There are 31.8 million social media users in Canada. I know I shouldn't be surprised by that number, but I kind of am. I don't know about you, but I feel like social media is one of those things that even if you're someone who is not a huge fan of social media, I think they secretly use it when people aren't looking. Now I want to share where people are spending most of their time and on what platforms.

76% are on Facebook. This one surprised me. I have heard from many people recently that they're saying Facebook is dead or it's slowing down or you're old if you use Facebook. All right, that one might have come from my children, but I've heard from many people that Facebook is no longer the be all and end all that it used to be. I'm a little surprised that it is still at 76%.

58% are on Instagram. Okay, that one I kind of get. I've just recently kind of fallen back in love with Instagram and I'm on it all the time, just sharing and posting, making reels, having fun with it and just enjoying.

36% are on Twitter I can see that. One of the things I love about Twitter is how easily it is to take someone else's info and share it and spread the word. In that sense it is very useful.

34% are on Pinterest I have a secret love affair with Pinterest. I've got many, many boards of things that I eventually want to get done in life or if I have the time to do. I also really love the Pinterest reality and the fails because that's how it works sometimes. You to make something Pinterest beautiful and sometimes it just falls short.

32% are Tik Tok. I thought that was going to be much more. I feel like TikTok came in at a perfect time. We were all sitting at home on our phones, on our devices and we were able to just swipe, watch and enjoy. I think I've mentioned it before, but February I made a challenge for myself to make a TikTok every single day. It was kind of fun to just get out there and put some content together. Whether I liked it or not, I took the time and took the effort and shared some TikTok content.

31% are on LinkedIn. I feel this one is a number that's probably going to start rising depending on what your business is or what you're looking for. I think that's a resource that I personally haven't tapped into enough yet, but I'm definitely going to start looking into it.

Now I want to share how you can use social media for good in your business and personal life. I believe that the business and the personnel really are intertwined. I think that even if you have a specific page that's made for your business, if all you're doing is throwing up a sale or sharing the business, people are going to get bored. They're not there just for the business, they're there for you. I do believe that even if you're on social media for business, you better be prepared to share some of you and some of your personality. That being said, one of the questions I always get is when people first start a new business, they ask if they have to make a separate account for their business? If they already have a personal account with tons of followers, I say yes. And why I say yes is because you want to be able to invite people to join you. You don't want to all of a sudden, start posting tons of stuff of this business that they may or may not be interested in, you might get a lot of friends to stop following you. I would say definitely create something that is just designed for your business, but be prepared to share personal things on that at least once in a while

Another note, do not build your whole business on social media, on any platform. The reality is you do not own that platform. If I were to build my whole business on a Facebook page and then all of a sudden, the algorithms get changed or the guidelines or the rules change, I no longer have control of my business. I know many friends who have been put into Facebook jail. Yes, social media is amazing to connect, to build your brand, to engage, to really grow your business, but know that you should always be sending those people back to your website. Your website doesn't need to be fancy. It doesn't need to be crazy, doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles. It just needs to have a place where people can sign in their email, keep updated, and just a place that's not social media that you can send them back to. All right, so let's get started on some of these tips on how to use social media for good in your business.

#1 Give Value in Your Posts

Give, give, and the give a little bit more. What I mean by this is you do not want to constantly share a sale, or share a new product, here's, that new product here's, it's just too much. We get a lot of ads constantly on our phones, right? We're not surprised by that. But when you want to go to somebody's page, I'm looking for something a little bit more. I want that connection. I want them to provide some value. What's some kind of value that you could potentially give your followers or your clients or people looking into you? Some things that could be value, are share a demo of your product or some tips and tricks and hacks on how to use these products. Another way you could give value is maybe giving them something, a link or a blog or some information that's not really your business but has to do with something that they may enjoy. When I was creating content for a summer camp, the kids in the camp always do tons of crafts. While we were all sitting at home with absolutely nothing to do, I just started sharing with them all these different links for crafts because I knew the kids enjoyed them. I also knew they were sitting at home. It really had nothing to do with the specific camp but I was giving them something those kids would enjoy.

#2 Know the purpose of your post

I find as business owners and even in personal posts, sometimes we feel this need that you have to post. It feels like you are throwing spaghetti up on the wall and hoping something sticks and someone will engage and someone will like it. That to me is a waste of your time and it's a waste of your follower’s time too, right? You want to have a purpose ahead of time. For example, in one post I really want to engage with this person. Or this post I really want to show that demo of that new product or I know in two weeks there's going to be a sale and I want to start building some excitement around that. Just know the purpose of why you are posting what you are. The other thing I want you to be aware of is how much you are posting and how that may feel to your followers. I had a friend recently decided to take on this really fun challenge for herself. She went from posting one time a day to five to six to ten times a day. If you are going to start posting like crazy, give your people a warning and let them know what you are doing. “I want your support; I want to share with you or I need your help to do this with me.” If you do all of sudden go from one post to ten post, don't be surprised if you lose followers or the engagements not there. People not used to it.

#3 Engage and Connect

My favorite way to engage with people on a lot of different platforms, but mainly Facebook is Facebook groups and I hop on different groups and I try to answer questions if I can or provide support if I can. Sometimes I connect one person with another person. Hopping onto those groups you become somewhat of an expert and it is a great way to build engagement without being pushy, without selling, without feeling slimy. You're just taking the time to really support and engage with different people. I actually bought the house that I live in now because of a fabulous woman I didn't even know who answered some questions for me on a Facebook group. We are now very good friends and I thank her every day because this house and this community and this place was such a great choice for my family. I don't know if I would have bought it if I didn't chat with her otherwise. Facebook groups is a great way to engage with potential clients or really just get your name out there and be supportive. I also love engaging with people personally by sending out birthday messages. I don't know about you, but I love it when it's my birthday, I'm flipping through the screen and reading message after message after message, especially people you haven't talked to in years.

#4 Be You

People now adays have their false detectors up and they know when people are kind of being fake. On social media, we used to love seeing someone being so perfect and I feel like that's gone. I feel like what we're looking for now on social media is that genuine connection and almost like a backstage pass or a sneak peek behind the scenes. We're looking for the reality of you. One of my mentors made this video the other day, and I was blown away with it. She is a new writer. She hosts a podcast. Her name is Jenna Kutcher. She is the Gold Digger podcast, which I absolutely love. She has just finished writing a book and she created this video to say thank you to all the people who helped her in her book. What I loved about this so much is the video she created was her sitting at her kitchen table with her newborn baby in her sweatpants, and her hair was pulled back in a scrunchie. She didn't have makeup on. She didn't have tons of glam or set-up. She was honestly and genuinely her. She showed up, she said her thank yous. I was in tears because it was so amazing. It was truthful, and it was beautiful. When you're making social media posts, don't try to be things that you're not, because I feel like people are going to know. They're going to catch you, they're not going to believe you, and it's just going to come off as not genuine.

#5 Be Consistent

As much as we don't want to be spamming all of our people with so much post, we also don't want to post once and then never come back to it. Your best plan is to create a social media strategy, plan or system for you. What works for you might not work for me, might not work for someone else. I always say start off small, start off simple and start up with what you're comfortable with. I find sometimes as business owners, we think we have to be on all the platforms all the times, posting 5 to10 times a day. No, start off where you like to be, where your people are, which is very important. Do some research, check around, see where you're getting the most engagement, and then sit there and make a plan. Maybe it’s once a week you're going to post. You can handle that and build from there. Another tip is when to post. Everyone always asks when is the perfect time? That changes for every business owner because depending on who you're posting to, they are going to look at it at different times. If I'm posting to some busy Mamas, I probably don't want to post anywhere around dinnertime, but maybe right after kids go to bed or maybe right after school drop off. A good idea is to test some different times and see where you're getting the most engagement.

One last final tip, when you are posting for social media, be ready to engage. You don't want to post something and then just ghost You want to be there and be able to connect. If you're asking a question from your audience, be ready to answer back or engage with them. You want to build that brand, build that connection, build that community.

I hope you enjoyed those tips and I would love to hear from you. What is your favourite social media platform right now? I know mine changes all of the time.

If you want to listen to the podcast episode, click here.

If you want to see the video version, click here