How to Create a Social Presence for Your Christian Business
On Tuesday, we spoke about benefits of Christian Social Networking. If you are a Christian that owns a business, and you want to enter the social marketing realm, the following steps need to be determined:
- Who am I reaching? Who is MY client? - this is key to determining what your area of focus should be.
- What are my clients looking for? - determining the focus of your content will provide you a strong roadmap for success.
- What is my plan? - creating a short and long-term marketing plan that includes goals and milestones will allow you to be successful.
- How do I implement this plan? - finding the correct personnel is key, but when you cannot hire a full time marketing guru, knowledge and a little preparation will allow you to meet your goals.
During the implementation process you will need to create your business and brand presence on Social Media platforms. Today we will focus on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.
FACEBOOK Instead of using a typical profile to promote your business, Facebook created Pages to allow for the nuances of advertising and promoting your organization. To create a strong presence, you will need to create a personal profile and then use the
Create Page function to create a presence. Make sure your page signifies your business brand, including your mission statement.
*Once created, you can use your existing email database to invite people to “Like” your page. This will allow them to be aware of your current activity and comments.*After 25 likes to your page, you will be able to create a custom link to your Facebook profile. (i.e. facebook.com/shepherdsguideofficial) This will allow you to strengthen your brand. TWITTER Setting up Twitter for your business is quite easy. You just need to create an account for your business. When setting up, make sure to create a user that is a strong representation of your brand (i.e.
twitter.com/shepherdsguide) GOOGLE+ Google+ recently launched Google+ Pages, a similar product to Facebook pages. To create a page, you will need to first create a profile. Once your profile is completed, you will need to
create a page.
LINKEDIN When you create a personal profile on LinkedIn and add your current company, LinkedIn will automatically create a page for your business. Recently, they have allowed authorized personnel to “claim” these pages and then add logos, descriptions, etc. When on your profile, click on the companies tab and then your current company. You can follow the instructions to claim ownership and update your company information.
*Keep in mind during the claim process that you should use an email address for your domain (i.e. johndoe@shepherdsguide.com), not yahoo, hotmail, gmail etc. Make sure you are keeping a consistent, strong business brand while you are in the setup process. It does not take much to create a fractured brand presence for your Christian owned business. Now that you have created your presence, keep an ear out for what your clients are saying on Social Media. The key is to stay connected, and keep an open forum for communication.
ShepherdsGuide.com offers
advertising packages that allow you to link users directly to your Facebook page and Twitter accounts. Find out how to sign up today!
