AKRON (Jan. 23, 2013) — As I enter into the new year, as always, I bring out and dust off my old book of resolutions.
It's my yearly quest to eat healthier foods, drink more water and to stop relying on caffeine as my only energy source to get me through the day.
However this year I decided to focus on business goals instead of personal ones, and my first step is here on Tire Business' blog. I think one of the greatest marketing tools — and not just because it's free, although that helps — is social media. It is a great way to build relationships with your customers, along with making contacts with new generations of potential customers.
I personally enjoy writing these blogs as it gives me an opportunity to share a different perspective to the tire industry. Since I am still fairly new to the tire scene, I'd like to help give a voice to others also just entering the business — and maybe to help veterans learn some fresh ideas.
As part of this initiative, Tire Business will be launching a social media blog on our website to help our readers learn how to best utilize the various forms of social media out there.
I think all too often businesses start out with good intentions, rolling out social media pages after hearing they are important. But once that's done, they're not so sure what to do after they're created. So they put up the bare minimums and call it a day — OK, at least we tried.
This is just how I feel about holiday decorations every year, so I'm glad when my neighbors have finally taken everything down so I can stop feeling like a failure. Maybe if there was a "How-to" guide with holiday lighting I would be better at it.
This was my thought with the social media blog. Sure, there's plenty of information about social media everywhere — especially on the Internet — but what if you don't have time to sift through all the information just to find one thing that might work for your company? What if you just want someone to tell you what "liking" actually does on Facebook? Or why those parents reportedly named their baby Hashtag? OK, well I might not actually be able to explain to you why someone would do that, but I can tell you how to use hashtagging on Twitter to make your tweets more easily searchable.
After we've talked about some simple ways to make your company's social media platforms more successful, then we can expand as we go along. I'll help you sift through all the information out there. If there is a specific topic you would like some more information on — social media or others — feel free to email me at [email protected] or call me at 330-865-6143.
Jennifer Karpus is a Tire Business reporter.