If your Orange County business is about to dive into social media use, then it is natural for you to have some trepidation. You know how useful social media can be, but you also know that it can be a waste of time if used ineffectively, and time is likely valuable to you if you’ve got a company to run.

The solution to this issue is to stick to proven social media strategies and not to try anything too radical, at least not as first. Here’s some tips for getting started which have been proven effective regardless of the niche in which your business operates.

Focus on Customer Interaction, Not Sales

The formula for marketing on social media might seem simple enough if you’ve never done it before. Just start up some profiles and then send out messages periodically about your services and products so that people will buy them. Nothing could be simpler, right?

Well, no, not exactly. In a 30-second TV spot then it would be appropriate to talk about the Black Friday sale that you’re having or the new burrito that you want people to try. There’s nothing to say that you can’t send out the occasional social media message that’s along those lines, but if you’re concentrating on self-promotion via your social media feeds and nothing else, then not many individuals are going to want to follow you.

Social media is a way for you to interact with your customers in a way that goes beyond marketing, and you want to strive for those personal connections. Social media gives you a chance to be playful, to do some give-and-take with your customers to learn what makes them tick, and it lets them see that you’re not a faceless corporate entity that only cares about their money.

Yes, sales and engagement are the ultimate goals with social media for Orange County companies, but you should make every effort to disguise that. Your followers know that you want their money, but you don’t need to be fixated on sales with every post. Instead, go for fun, or motivating. It has become a proven formula over the past decade-plus as social media has evolved.

Don’t Ever Ignore Negative Feedback

When someone posts on social media about one of your services or products then it means that they had a strong reaction to it. You’d hope that reaction was positive, but sometimes that’s not going to be the case. Even the companies in Orange County that make things which people love are going to have some dissatisfied customers occasionally.

While that’s unavoidable, when someone speaks out about your company in a negative way, it’s far better to respond to it than it is to ignore it. Ignoring negative feedback is a tacit agreement with it. Instead, react as you deem appropriate, but try to appease the individual rather than inflame them further.

If one of your products did not function as it should, suggest replacing it. If one of your employees treated the aggrieved party in a way that they did not appreciate, tell them that you will look into the matter, but follow up rather than just paying lip service to the problem.

If you can get someone who thinks poorly of your company to change their minds, then it sets a precedent, and you’ll be seen as a business that’s willing to fix things that go wrong. This personal touch helps with how people perceive you.

Interaction is Key

You should also be looking to interact with your followers as much as you can. If someone talks about one of your products, then you should join in the discussion, and if someone wants to have a social media conversation with you about something frivolous, then you need to do so without hesitation.

Many of the people who use social media just want to be acknowledged. They want to feel like they’re part of a community, and for some of them, their social media lives are equally valuable as their real-life, face-to-face interactions with their peers.

Strive to be the human beings behind the brand. The more engagement you get, the higher reach you will have, and that’s how you get the most exposure. Exposure is what allows a small mom-and-pop operation to expand and flourish, and social media is the best way for you to do it.

Proofread

Proofreading isn’t a part of writing that anyone enjoys, whether it’s a college essay, a passage written for a textbook, or even social media posts. But if your Orange County company wants to appear like professionals, then you need to go back over all of your social media posts before you send them out into the world. Then, for good measure, go back over them again.

Nothing is more embarrassing than a typo in the copy when you’re trying to promote a new product. It’s the type of cringe-worthy detail that can get you to go viral for all of the wrong reasons.

Talk About Current Events

A fine way to get the conversation going via your social media feeds is to talk about things that are in the news. If you’re using a 20/80 formula, meaning that 20 percent of the time you’re plugging your services and products and the other 80 you’re talking about irrelevant things, then you need some grist for the mill.

Nothing is better than celebrity chatter, political issues, or any other human interest story. Depending on your niche you can select the stories that make the most sense for your brand to be discussing.

If you can learn how to do all of the things that we mentioned, then you should be able to find success with your social media strategy. Orange County companies that don’t use social media get left behind, so don’t hesitate to get on board. Just follow a proven formula until you’re a bit more comfortable with the various platforms, and then you might choose to get experimental.