Social Business Questions and Answers

By Kyle McCabe | July 1, 2010

The Black Hills Home Builders Association recently help a seminar for its members and invited RSA to come speak to them about social media for business. It was a great time with a small, intimate group, and we fielded quite a few questions. Here are a few of those questions, including our answers.

What is Twitter?
I’ve written about Twitter here a couple times. In short, it’s a networking tool, a way to engage in conversation with people around the globe. It may be new technology, but it’s still just people talking. Sign up for an account and post, 140 characters at a time, about things that matter to you and the people you wish to interact with, whether they be customers, prospects, colleagues or friends.

Try using Twitter’s search feature to find people talking about topics of interest, and begin to engage them. Keep in mind every “tweet” is an invitation to engage – people want to hear from you!

How much time should I spend on social media?
As much or as little as you want to. And like most things in life, you get out of it what you put into it. Some have called social media a big waste of time, others have thrived in the space and seen tremendous business success. I won’t lie to you – becoming adept at social communication for your business takes a lot of time. What that time is worth, and how much of it you spend on this kind of investment, will be up to you.

I spend most of the workday on Twitter, but it’s actually a passive presence: I let TweetDeck run on my desktop, updating me every so often about new tweets and conversations. I can then choose to ignore them and continue working, take a moment to read them, or take a few minutes to respond (though this last one can turn into hours of sporadic conversation if you want it to).

Which platforms are good to use?
This will differ (perhaps only slightly) for each business. There are literally hundreds of social networking platforms, though many of them are competing “clones” of the same concept. In any case it can be difficult to know which ones to use.

First, keep in mind you’ll never use them all, and if you try, you will spread yourself too thin and become overwhelmed. Second, decide which tools to focus on (this will depend largely on your overall goals, objectives for web, and the strategic approach you’ve developed).

In general I think many businesses could benefit from having a Facebook page, Twitter account, or Youtube channel, though that is not true in all cases. There are also “bookmarking” sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, and review sites like Yelp.

Another are that should get some attention as well is that group of tools created for monitoring the social web for mentions of your business, brand, competitors, or persons or topics of interest. This is a great way to supplement your market research and keep tabs on competitors, customers and prospects. In fact, if you don’t do anything else, do this. Some places to start include Google Alerts, Socialmention, or Trackur.

What kinds of things do you recommend posting?
If you’ve done the proper research and defined your goals and intended audience, this question will be much easier to answer. Though it will be somewhat different for every business, I’m confident that everyone can follow this guiding principle: be helpful, be interesting, or be gone.

If you’re not helping people out or posting something that is actually interesting to them, they are simply not going to care about what you have to say (I should know…)

How do I know what my audience wants?
Try asking them. You can make all kinds of assumptions, but the best way to find out what your audience wants from you is to ask. The next best way is to just dive in and see what engages that audience and what doesn’t.

Should I remove negative comments?
Any social platform worth using offers a way for people to comment on your content. The whole point of the social web is interactivity, and this is why people use it. If you’re removing user content, you are hampering that interaction.

That being said, there may be cases in which it is just better to remove a comment, if possible, and that decision is yours alone. In general, however, it can reflect well on you to let a negative comment stand, or even better, to respond to it in a constructive way.

That covers some of the bigger questions asked, and that we commonly get from clients. Are there other questions you might ask on this topic? Or would you have answered any of these differently? Please leave a comment!

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