I’ve been watching IT trends for slightly over a decade now. It’s fascinating watching new trends emerge and gather steam, and, in some cases, fade away.

I still recall how wondrous it was to be able to share files via peer-to-peer networks when Napster first emerged. Then bittorrent, an even more efficient way  of file-sharing, emerged. Now, the preferred way to share files is through online storage systems like Rapidshare and Hotfile.

It was also fascinating watching Web 1.0 evolve into Web 2.0 and the emergence of blogging as a potent form of user-generated content. Today, blogging has peaked and is stagnating if not declining. The chief reason for that is social media.

NONEThere are tons of social media platforms out there but when MPH expressed interest in having me write a book on this topic, I decided to focus on Facebook and Twitter, the two Big Kahunas of the social media scene.

Just look around you. Everywhere you go, major brands are asking you to “like” their Facebook pages and to “follow” them on Twitter. Sure, some companies might have a blog or a YouTube channel or a podcast, or any combination of these. But the common denominators are Facebook and Twitter.

Using Facebook and Twitter for social purposes is something intuitive but using them for business purposes is less obvious. Which is why I wrote the book. I wanted to show that it’s actually quite easy to do this. You just need to know some fundamentals and best practices.

Updates go direct to you

One key reason I believe social media is more potent than blogging is that you don’t have to specially go to a blog or check your RSS feeds to be updated on things. If you “like” a Facebook page or “follow” a Twitter account, updates will appear in your Facebook and Twitter timeline.

So, you could be just logging on to see what your friends have been up to, and in your public timeline there would be updates by the brands you like and follow. In other words, the updates go direct to you.

NONEIt’s worth mentioning that although Facebook and Twitter can be used as a sales lead generator for companies, they are not really the right platforms for doing this. Rather, they are ideal for doing three core things that are useful - even critical - to a company: i) communication ii) branding and iii) engagement.

It’s great for communication because, as I mentioned earlier, you can go direct to the target audience. Branding, meanwhile is achieved through the quality and nature of your status updates.

Then there’s engagement, which is basically customer service. Any service-oriented business must engage with their customers through Twitter, which is starting to supplant the role of call centres. For example, if I have  a problem with Maxis, I don’t even bother to call their hotline. I just tweet them and the customer service team will respond rather quickly and more effectively.

Anyone can set up a Facebook account but do you know the difference between a Facebook page and a group? They are similar but with pages, you can install applications. With groups, you can’t. However, with groups you can do mass messaging. With pages, this is not possible. These are things you should consider before deciding on a page or group.

How to optimise your 140 characters

Similarly, anyone can set up a Twitter account but do you know how to optimise your 140 characters, which on the surface seems like an impossibly tight restriction? How can you possibly do effective  communications, branding and engagement with that?

You can and it’s being done by leading companies all over the world. It requires learning to be succinct and concise. And getting straight to the heart of the matter. And to do so using shorthand, contractions and URL shorteners like TinyURL or Bit.Ly.

When blogging became mainstream, companies had to start thinking about implementing a blogging policy for its employees. In media companies, there was a huge debate about whether journalists have the right to blog and if so, what restrictions to impose.

Similarly, many big companies today have social media policies which make it clear for employees what they are allowed and not allowed to do on their social media pages. If your organisation has not set up such a policy, it's worth looking into it because social media is no fad. It’s here to stay. At least Facebook and Twitter are.

 

OON YEOH’s new book ‘Like Me, Follow Me’ has just been published by MPH. You can connect with him via Facebook and Twitter.