Beware of Copying Your Competitors on Social Media

If you are new to using social media for your business or company, you may decide that emulating how your competitors present themselves on social media is the best strategy for you.

Before you take this path, it's important to know if your competitors are using social media effectively. If they aren't, instead of copying their practices you should improve on their practices.



Now this objective to pull ahead of your competitors on major social media sites requires several steps:

First, you have to learn effective social media strategies in general.

Second, you have to adapt these strategies for the specific messages you'd like to get out on social media.

Third, you have to commit to these specific strategies consistently over the long haul.

Another important part of your social media strategies thing you must decide early on is:

Which target markets are you trying to connect with? In other words, who do you want to reach on social media?

This decision of who you are targeting is very relevant because otherwise your social media activities can be all over the place without a clear focus.

Effective Twitter profiles:

When it comes to Twitter, because Twitter profiles are so brief you may easily misjudge how to present your business or company.

As I've written before, I do NOT automatically follow back on Twitter. I check out the profile of every person/company who follows me.



Here are some of the most obvious Twitter profile problems I see (and which you might mistakenly believe are correct based on what others are doing):

1. No bio. Now why people don't understand the power of the 120-character bio is beyond me. Why should I follow you if I don't know what you're about?

2. No link. Again, why not make it easy for people to be interested in you? You can use a link to another social media site if you don't yet have your own website or blog.

3. No photo. Really? Why should I trust you?

4. Photo so bland it is unmemorable (such as a piece of technological equipment that doesn't look like anything).

Because social media can be so powerful for connecting with prospective clients and customers, spend the time to learn "best practices" and then put this information to good use.

Instead of playing follow the leader with your competitors, strive to become the leader yourself.

© 2011 Miller Mosaic, LLC

Phyllis Zimbler Miller can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ZimblerMiller and Yael K. Miller can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MillerMosaicLLC

Miller Mosaic has a set of three how-to social media videos – Twitter, Facebook Page and LinkedIn – to help people set up their accounts on these sites.