Promote your practice on social media

Social media is a powerful tool to promote your practice and connect with potential clients. Learn to use them effectively.

How to use social media?

Social media has a great advantage over other marketing channels: they’re free. Social media puts you in contact with your clients and if you handle them correctly, they’ll do much of your marketing for you.

For example, through them you can.

• Keep your brand in the minds of your clients and potential clients, thanks to being present periodically.
• Talk to your clients about their needs - which will allow you to offer new services and grow your business.
• Share positive experiences with others.
• Show your marketing (services, offers, content, experience,….) to potential clients.

Social media gives you the option to communicate directly and personally with your current and potential clients. And it’s cheap, in many cases it costs you little more than your time.

But that’s not all. Social media also allows you to position your brand as a leader in your area of expertise. Being on social media makes it easier to stay up to date with the latest trends and developments in your sector. And they can help you differentiate yourself from the competition.

So in this guide, we’ll take a look at the social media you can use in your business and especially talk about how you can get the most out of them.

Know each social network

Each social network has its own demographics. This following is a list of the most important ones from the perspective of a business like yours:

• Facebook: It’s the largest social network but the truth is that it’s used more by people than businesses. Most firms and advisory practices are focused on businesses, but you can still gain a lot by having a good online presence on Facebook. You can use it as a content platform to share photos, videos and links that lead to your website. Focus on connecting with local businesses and build relationships.

• LinkedIn: If you want to connect with other advisory practices, sector professionals and business people in general, you should be on LinkedIn. This network allows professionals to share their experiences, knowledge and areas of interest. It helps them connect with each other. You can set up for your business and then start making connections and joining groups. Take a look at our article on how to get the most out of LinkedIn.

• Twitter: How much can you say with 140 characters? Well, the truth is a lot. Learning to condense information into short and attractive messages is something very interesting. Use hashtags to help other users find your tweets. Diversify your message, attract people to your page and try to show the more human side of your brand.

• Google+: it’s similar to Facebook in many aspects although it has fewer users and is more business-focused. It’s linked to other Google tools so if any of your clients use Google Apps it’s very likely they have a profile. It includes Hangouts which are very useful for communicating remotely.

• Blogs: they’re the ideal place for longer and more detailed content. The type of content that will make users return to your page again and again. We’ll talk about this topic in detail in another guide.

Apart from these networks there are Youtube, Vimeo, Pinterest, Instagram,…. and a long list of smaller social networks that aren’t as interesting because their users don’t fit the profile of your potential clients.

Just like your website, your business profiles on social media are an extension of your brand.

A well-maintained profile

Your social media profiles are just as important as your website. They’re an extension of your brand and as such should be aligned with your message.

It’s a brief description of who you are and what you do, so try to make it well thought out and professional. Try to be consistent across various profiles on different social networks: use the same logo, the same colors, a similar message,…

This way when a current or potential client finds one of your social media profiles, they’ll immediately know who you are. Consistency helps you build a solid brand image. Also make sure to put links to your profiles on your website.

Follow a strategy

Learn how different social networks work and build a strategy that works for your business. For example, you can use:

• Instagram to share photos of the team or interesting activities you’ve organized.
• Twitter to announce special offers or talk about the latest news.
• LinkedIn to build a network of business contacts complementary to yours, current and potential clients, suppliers…
• Facebook to build a less formal network that generates new potential clients.
• Blogs to gain authority in the sector and build your brand image on the Internet.

There will always be things that can be shared on more than one social network, but over time you’ll learn to use the most appropriate channel to share each type of content.

Personal profiles

You can also have personal profiles on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram. But you must keep in mind that what’s good for a personal profile may not be good for your business profile.

You also can’t forget that your social media profiles are also an extension of your business. It’s part of your brand’s personality and helps define your business in your clients’ eyes.

5 steps to create good social media posts

Creating good posts, like so many other things in life, depends on practice. On trying, on testing what works and what doesn’t with your target audience. But if you don’t know where to start, these are 5 tips that might help you:

1. Make interesting posts: Try to make your posts always have something interesting and always add your business perspective. Don’t just tell about things that happen – explain how they might affect your current and potential clients.

2. Relevant posts: You know your clients and their businesses well, so if your clients are mostly professionals, make sure to tweet about this sector. Focus your posts on topics that might interest your clients.

3. Keep them professional: When you start posting on social media it’s easy to cross the line between personal and professional. In this case, the repercussions for your business can be very negative. Think carefully about what you’re going to post and when in doubt, better not post it.

4. Show your personality: It’s important to be professional in what you share, but always try to give it a personal touch. If you use your more human side or a bit of humor, your posts will be better than a simple generic post.

5. Less is more: Posting on social media can be a bit addictive at first. The temptation to post about everything, no matter how insignificant, is great. But if you go down this path, your fans will likely get tired of you. It’s much better to post less but make sure your posts are always very relevant. Try to do it regularly.

Listen and learn

The best thing about social media is that they’re a great instrument for communicating with your current and potential clients. If they like what you post they’ll tell you and if they don’t like it they’ll tell you too. So listen to what your followers want and give it to them.

Great businesses know how to collect these comments and adapt them to the needs of their current and potential clients. And nothing is more valuable for growth than comments from your clients and fans.