Extending your social media presence beyond your company's profiles has many benefits, including direct engagement with customers, increased transparency, new interest, press coverage and gained authority in your industry. Despite the potential new business opportunities that come from having a strong personal brand, most CEOs ignore the free marketing that social media provides. The 2015 Social CEO Report found that more than 60 percent of CEOs have no social presence at all, and zero Fortune 500 CEOs have a presence on the six most popular social media channels.
Small business owners have the advantage of growing their following organically as their company grows, which helps solidify strong, genuine relationships early on. But with all the challenges small business owners face and the multiple directions they're pulled in, social media may be on the bottom of the priority list.
If this sounds like your business, use the following tips to create profiles that benefit your business and to spend time interacting with followers to achieve new growth.
Automate Your Accounting
Keeping track of business expenses is a major pain point for business owners. Entrepreneur reports that working on financial processes can consume up to two full days per month, and nearly three-quarters of business owners say that spending time on business expenses prevents them from working on more critical issues.
Ditch spreadsheets and manual computing that primes your business for costly errors. Online accounting software, such as Sage One, provides built-in reports and statements and enables business owners to handle invoicing with ease. The cloud capabilities allow you to access records from anywhere, while using any device. It also protects your financial data from theft, damage and security breaches, since it is encrypted and stored securely.
Employ a Virtual Assistant
Stop sifting through endless email inboxes, wasting precious minutes on organizing data and spending time comparing travel sites to book the best deal on your next work trip. There are dozens of ways a virtual assistant can efficiently tackle outsourced tasks to give business owners more time to market themselves.
Virtual assistants are flexible, so you can set prioritized tasks based on your budget and evolve duties according to how your business is growing. Networks such as MyTasker and Upwork offer services ranging from customer service to design and creative.
Save Time on Typing
Whether you prefer thinking out loud when devising your latest business ideas or you need to quickly get a rough draft of a proposal written down to have an editor polish later, a dictation application instantly converts your speech into writing so you don't miss a dynamite thought. It's a handy tool, especially if you're nowhere near a keyboard bigger than a smartphone screen.
Dragon Mobile Assistant is a tool that sends and receives text messages, posts social media updates, creates emails, sets reminders and completes Internet searches. Dual Writer is another speech-powered word processor that lets you speak and store your ideas.
Relax Your Travel
If you are often on the go, saving time and hassle when booking your trips is essential. The TripIt app organizes your travel itineraries and offers travel documentation storage. Concur manages your business expenses for you, and WiFi Finder searches for spots where you can get connected with free and paid Wi-Fi in more than 140 countries.
Join.me enables you to join meetings back home with a few clicks, and Skype provides instant video conferencing for quick updates. Think about your needs before you travel and download apps to do the work for you, so you have more time to share positive outcomes from your business travel experience on your social media channels.