Homepage – Social Media Consultant
Welcome to Susanne Penfold Social Media Consultant Site
What can a Social Media Consultant do for your Business?
Firstly you might be asking yourself ” do I need a social media consultant?”
And the answer might be that you don’t.
And that’s fine, as the objective of this site is to provide free useful advice to help your businesses online presence. Please use the advice given freely here, we’re be delighted, and tell us about your successes!
However I do believe ALL businesses have a great opportunity being given them through the internet, and all the various social sites, and mobile technologies that are fast emerging.
Never has it been easier, faster, and cheaper to contact potential customers, and keep in touch with existing customers, this collective online communication medium is what I like to consider as “social media”; businesses that adopt social media are already benefiting greatly.
If you have a business that you want to promote, get more customers and sales, social media is the way to go. You need to be out there promoting your business, getting feedback from customers (good and bad) and acting on it.
It doesn’t matter what type of business you have; if customers can’t find you using the internet then they will find someone else instead!
Social Media – The Village Gossip Of The Future
I like to think of social media in a old fashion way. Social media is the village gossip, the person that everyone goes to find out about something or someone. A font of knowledge if you like.
Your business has lots of information to share with people. Social media maybe carrying conversations about your business right now!
Understanding what is being said, reacting to correct any bad, and amplifying the good, is what managing social media is all about.
Used correctly social media sites can help promote your business services in a friendly helpful way that encourages people to interact and trust you. People buy from people, they want to know who they are dealing with; they want to see what you have to offer.
It doesn’t matter what type of business you’re in, you could be a shop on the high street, an estate agents, dentist, consultant, painter & decorator, a plumber, restaurant or a garden designer all will benefit from a positive social presence.
If you sell a product or service you need to be visible on the net and that’s where social media can help. In these modern times people are busy and they want information FAST, and the first place they look is on the internet either by using PC, or increasingly via the many smart mobile devices such as the Iphone, Ipad, Blackberry etc, etc.
If your business is easily visible on the Internet you’ll benefit, if your business is easily visible and has positive ‘social’ references you’ll benefit massively!
How To Set Up Your Internet / Social Media Presence
No two business are the same, so this is not a one size fits all situation, but generally speaking you need to look at your business and establish your unique selling points; your USP’s. These are what your social media messages are going to focused on to make you stand out from the crowd.
If you want to set up your own social media campaign up yourself you can, but there are rules that you need to abide by.
- Firstly as I said you need to identify your own USP’s to promote.
- You need to think about what’s in it for the customer, your “offer” should be clear and compelling.
- You don’t want to pitch in a overtly sales way, you need to help with a problem, give your client’s advice, ideas, special promotions, and PROOF.
Let’s look at the pros and cons of social media
- Do it the right way and find many new customers at very low cost
- Make new business connections
- Talk to the existing clients about new products, services and offers
- Build relationships with your customers, and they’ll tell you what they want
- Good reviews from your customers = word of mouth referrals = marketing Nirvana
The cons
- Social Media can be very time consuming & time is money!
- Don’t know what to say, will people be interested?
- Don’t know where to start which social media sites should I use?
- What if I get bad reviews; how will it effect my business?
Social media done right will be hugely profitable, bad reviews are nothing to be scared of, as long as you take action to correct the cause.
Social media or ensuring you have an effective web presence may range from simply ensuring you have registered your business with Google Places (Google’s free local directory service that is a MUST have for ALL business with a geographic focus), a “set and forget” exercise, right through to a full interactive social media presence, that we are seeing from all major corporates whatever their line of business.
Your First Social Media Campaign
- To start your social media campaign you need to start locally and find your USP (unique selling point).
- You need to promote your brand.
- Find the social media platforms that will help your business. With over 400 social media sites on the web with new ones popping up every day this can be a daunting task but to start with you should have:
- YouTube
- Facebook fan page
- Plus Make sure you have claimed your Google Places listing.
Depending on your business there are many others social network sites that could be appropriate but this is a great stating point.
Setting up each site can be a little confusing and time consuming but it will be well worth it and if this task is too overwhelming that’s where a social media consultant can help.
My job as a social media consultant would be to help you identify your USP, help set up your social media account the right way, make sure your branding is the same on all these sites and show you how to use them.
If you want me to take control of all the updates on all the social media platforms when everything is set up then I can also offer this service, but don’t think you will have no involvement.
It’s your business and you will need to make a commitment to keep me updated on all your offers, events, products and services.
If you find a social media consultant that says yes I can do everything for you and don’t have at least a monthly meeting on what is happening in your business then your social media campaign will not work.
I need input from you; I need you to help me make your campaign a success.
You will need to Ask your customers if they are on Twitter, facebook and YouTube, have a poster or cards made up with a qr code (those black and white code boxes that people scan into their phones) it makes it easy to follow you, like you or subscribe to you.
This is another service that I can provide sorting out your QR codes.
The next question is how much will a social media consultant cost?
How much do you spend on advertising at the moment, maybe you run an ad in a local paper, or a local magazine. A social media consultant doesn’t have to cost a fortune. It all depends on the service you require and the great thing about the web is once they know where you are they will come back. If you see an ad of interest in a newspaper how many times do you take the details down and ring them, or do you look at it think that’s interesting, forget about it and you end up just putting the paper in the recycling and never doing anything about it.
Social Media Consultant Costs
The starting costs for my services are £150 for the setup of 3 social media accounts and I will set up your Google places listing for free.
The monthly costs will vary depending on how much you want me to get involved in your updates.
I hope this has helped you understand a little about what a social media consultant does if you have any questions or would like more advice please contact me on 07867482932 or fill out the contact form in the side bar and I will get back to you.
I am now listed on Social Media Marketing as a social media consultant.
Incoming search terms:
- susannepenfoldsocialmediaconsultant co uk
- social media consultant
- media consultant
- Homepage-SocialMediaConsultant|SusannePenfoldSocialMediaConsultant
- media marketing consultant
- social media consulting
- social media marketing services earley