Near enough every business knows that having a social media presence is incredibly important.
It's a great way for your customers to find out information and to interact with you.
It's also an extra way to present your brand to people in a way you can control.
The problem is that now everyone has a social media presence it means you have to do a lot more to stand out and get the most out of it.
A passive approach is not the right way, you need to get out there and engage with your customers while making your social media unique.
Keeping an account ticking over with automatic updates with no personality is a fairly pointless exercise.
While it will show that your company is still active and will bring some traffic to the things you post, for the most part it will be ignored.
It doesn't do anything to keep followers and therefore has little chance of expanding or bringing in a significant amount of revenue.
By adding a bit of flair and humour to your Twitter or Facebook account you can massively increase your follower retention rate.
If you can be entertaining while giving out important information at the same time then perfect.
Remember though that not all of your posts need to be about selling your product or promoting your business.
Feel free to get involved in discussions within your industry.
Flag up some useful information or articles that your followers can genuinely use and they'll share it themselves.
This should help to bring more people to your social media pages and thus give them more influence.
Don't be afraid to give your online presence some character.
People like that as it makes it seem more human and approachable.
This is often a good thing as people like to know they're dealing with a real person when they have a question or complaint.
Speaking of complaints, an active social media approach is the way to go.
It might seem easier to just fob people off with your phone number and ask them to call, but talking to them online could be better.
Be sure not to use stock responses and offer to get back in touch with them rather than the other way round.
Be proactive.
Another plus in regards to that is the amount of people that your customers can talk to.
Before the internet a poorly handled complaint would just mean a moan to a few friends.
Nowadays people can have thousands of followers to point out your bad service to.
Don't be lazy.
It works both ways as well, give someone some great customer service and they'll be sure to tell their followers about it.
Social media is an amazing tool.
Don't let it go to waste.
Use it effectively and get the most out of it that you can.