So, this week has been Business Week for our May Career Course students with a large part of our focus on Social Media and how to get the most from it when setting up a new business.
Social media has completely transformed the way we communicate and is allowing us as florists to get connected with wide audiences all over the world. This in itself can be a little daunting when you are just starting out so we teamed up with The Florist and Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona this week and shared our tips for Social Media success.
Here are Rachel's 10 top tips:
1. Account names - Standardise your account names across all social media platforms to make it easy for people to find you. With the international reach this is important to build a strong local brand.
2. Personal photo - Have a professional headshot taken and use the same one on all your accounts. People respond much better to an individual photo rather than a generic photo of flowers or a shop front.
3. Location - Unless you’re running an international business, make sure you mention where you operate. It’s more likely that people will be looking for a local florist.
4. Portfolio – Use of photos in Twitter increases retweets by 150%, so keep your social media accounts regularly updated. These will act as a current portfolio, far better than the old fashioned tatty, out of date, hard copy.
5. Conversation – Social media is all about engagement, not about blasting out marketing bumph. Ask questions, talk to others and you’ll be reap the rewards.
6. Personality – Don’t overthink before you post. Let your own voice, views and opinions be heard but never be offensive or critical of others.
7. Social media management – There are lots of tools to help you manage time. Hootsuite and TweetDeck are just two platforms that allow you to compose one update and send to many different platforms. You can schedule in advance, perfect for updates when you are busy.
8. Frequency – There’s lots of science behind when and how often to post. But it’s your business and there will be some trial and error. Monitor how many likes, pins or retweets you get. Regular refining means you’ll hit on the right way for your business.
9. Respond – not every post you publish has to be yours. Find things that you like and inspire you and share them. It’s all about conversations, have these and you’ll build your network more quickly.
10. Commit and be consistent - Be prepared to be in it for the long-haul and you’ll get results.
Ultimately, we love connecting with you all via our Facebook, Twitter and Blogger pages and our advice would be to roll up your sleeves, be honest in how you communicate and get stuck in!
