Consider your business’s personality -

Involve an individual from within your business.

When working with companies to develop their online profile we find that involving an enthusiastic individual from within the company leads to profiles achieving a far higher growth rate and are subsequently more successful.

Whilst we can post tweets, blogs and your facebook status on your behalf it is always the personal touch that will entice fans or followers. People are naturally hesitant about following businesses assuming that posts will either be marketing based or boring business facts. It is therefore essential for businesses who want to become a part of an online community that they come across with a friendly, helpful and fun persona and undoubtedly the best way to do this is to have someone (internal to the company) with these same attributes regularly (daily) post.

Mixing up the news, promotions and personal posts will ensure people pay more attention to your feeds. This helps develop a community, builds stronger customer relationships, helps to increases your level of customer service and is likely to encourage existing customers to recommend your business via their online networks and secure you further sales.

An additional benefit is that for potential customers your community will allow them to learn more about you before making a purchase – they can discuss your services with members of the community, view your feedback and see how you have resolved any issues which may have cropped up in previous transactions. They therefore feel reassured when making the first purchase as they no longer think of you as an anonymous business.

Essentially you want potential users to feel at ease when visiting your profile – don’t make people think of you as a hard faced business.