The new marketing and communication have a strong influence on business growth and success and work at their best when they are adequate, relevant and human. As social media became an essential tool of today’s communication instruments, I will uncover things I find essential for mindful social media use.

Social media is an increasingly important meeting point between businesses and clients. We cannot afford to ignore it, as it gives an excellent opportunity to nurture dialogue, build brand awareness and favourability, and gain valuable customer insights. This is why every company should define, execute, track and adjust a tailor-made social media strategy in line with the characteristics, expectations and pain points of its customers.

Four essential things for a successful launch in social media for business:

1.  do thorough research about your buyer personas (your ideal, most relevant customers) and define your goals

2. choose the most suitable social platforms to use based on point 1 and the specifics of your company (I would say a proper mix of 2-3 is enough). Here is a great article on how to make the most of your LinkedIn presence as a B2B company.

3. create a Social Media Style Guide for a consistent way to respond to customers, share content, create posts and build your online brand image

4. define a Content Strategy that matches your objectives

5. build and maintain a Content Plan and Calendar for scheduling your social media activity, keeping track of objectives and setting the posting frequency for each platform

When you do this initial part right and post relevant content on a regular basis, you consolidate a differentiating image and occupy a valuable spot in their mind.

Keep your customers engaged and happy, offer valuable and helpful content, answer their questions, embrace feedback and they will keep you at heart.

Social media doesn’t work by itself and takes time and resources to do it right. So when companies use social media to cut some costs and mark some actions as done, they’d better think again. The worst thing one could do is treat social media separately or just as a more affordable way of promoting products. Actually, it is not like this anymore.

Social media should be well integrated into the overall communication and online strategy, always with eyes on how it influences sales and brand perception. Social media is by no means a patch that fixes the lack of consistent actions on other channels.

Last, but not least, direct interaction with customers and friends (if we talk about the personal side) is priceless, so don’t replace it with virtual interaction, as comfortable or rapid as it may seem.

Being connected doesn’t mean you have a connection if you haven’t met your ‘friends’ or customers face to face in ages.