Speak to any entrepreneur about marketing these days and they will tell you just how important things like Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in and You Tube are to any budding business, even Lord Alan Sugar and Richard Branson are regular “Tweeters”.

It would be impossible for me to walk you through all of these mediums and want this blog to give you a high level overview of social media, so I have to assume you have some small knowledge of one, or all of these sites.

I have set up all of these now for my coaching business “PH Coaching” and must say that I have had divided success among the platforms. The most testing has been Facebook as it is quite complicated to figure out how you want it set up. The most interesting, Twitter - I had a re-tweet from the TV explorer Bear Grylls who has 850 thousand plus followers, resulting in me receiving an extra 50 followers overnight and an instant global audience!

I am soon to begin making use of You Tube and start posting videos of myself talking about quick personal development tips. This medium is in last place as I am struggling to edit and review these as I hate seeing myself on camera! I will get over myself eventually, but this is one of my current challenges!
There are billions of people utilising Facebook and Twitter and there is an incredible amount of information out there on how to use it effectively. I wanted to offer my 3 top tips for social media success:

1. Make it consistent! – Your brand is your company; it’s no use being “xyz logistics” on Twitter then “Dave’s Transport” on Facebook just because it was taken. If you have to play around to get that consistency then I would do so. For example my website is www.phcoaching.co.uk my twitter is @ph_coaching (https://twitter.com/PH_Coaching) and Facebook is www.facebook.com/phcoaching. A common theme runs through it, even if I did have to be creative with an underscore on twitter to make it worked.

2. Make it personal! – Even if you have a great logo designed for you, use a picture of your face, people buy from people and deal with real people. It drastically improves trust meaning people are more likely to interact with you. If you check out my profile pic on twitter www.twitter.com/ph_coaching you will see that my picture also incorporates my logo, the best of both worlds

3. Make it interesting! – It’s not engaging enough to post endless updates about what you are doing today. If you see an inspiring picture; tweet it with your own comment, an interesting website or news article; post it with your opinion or challenge, to encourage users to click. Offer advice, guidance and opinion. It’s best to avoid tweeting endlessly about your product, or people will un-follow/un-like you!

These are just some tips that I have incorporated with immediate success. I have had Facebook for just over a month and have 89 likes and have regular engagement by posting motivational pictures and videos. On Twitter I have over 269 followers in about 3 months, mainly tweeting links to articles and pictures.
Social media works, provided you don’t only use it as a place to do free advertising!

For an example; how would you feel if you were at a party and everyone there just talked about this product they wanted you to buy? You would be turned off, right?! But if you were at the same party and people were talking about interesting news and events, you might ask them eventually what it is they do and would be far more prepared to listen to them and engage with them about their products.

Feel free to like me on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter using the links above to see how I am using it for an example on how you could use social media to help your business. I hope this is helpful to you in providing you a high level guide on social media. For more information there are many great bloggers and writers out there on the subject… Google is your friend!