Social media offers your pet business a whole host of opportunities.
But let’s face it – your expertise is firmly rooted in looking after domestic animals, not setting up and running Facebook and Twitter accounts.
So, while having a social presence is critical if you want your business to succeed, if you get things wrong, it can have an adverse impact.
Today, I’m going to run through some of the biggest reasons why your social media is failing – and how to fix them.
You Don’t Target Your Audience
There are over two billion social media accounts set up all over the world.
That’s a lot of people – but how many of them are genuinely interested in doing business with you?
Your pet business is, more than likely, a local affair. So right away you can discount trying to attract 99.5% of those people.
All those likes and comments you are getting from India might feel good, but they won’t be doing much for your business.
You Don’t Interact
Social media is all about being sociable, of course.
It means starting and joining in with conversations, spreading ideas and interacting with others. If you post something that attracts a comment, engage with the person.
It will help your business look like it’s alive, and engaged with its community. Social media gives you a great opportunity to build and develop relationships.
If you aren’t connecting with potential customers, there is little point in having a social media presence at all.
Your Employees aren’t Trained
Do you have employees running your social media account?
If so, be careful. Ensure you have strict rules in place that helps them be focused on spreading a consistent message and tone of voice.
Training is critical.
However, be sure to tie in that training to your needs as a pet business. There are many guides and courses out there on social media, of course.
But you might want to consider adapting some of that vital info, so it is relevant to your business needs. It might be a good idea investing in something like Training Connections Captivate courses, or similar.
It can help you create compelling, bespoke e-courses yourself, which you can relate directly to your pet business.
You have No Personality
There are a lot of energetic, exciting, and lovely people in the pet business – I meet a lot of you all the time.
However, it can sometimes be hard for people to bottle those sparkling personalities and recreate them on social media.
And you have to see things through your customer’s eyes, too. Who would you want looking after your pet? Someone with a lively and energetic social media page which clearly loves animals?
Or the business that just posts their special offers every once in awhile? Which brings us nicely to our final point.
Over-Promotion
Finally, social media is about connecting with people.
And while Facebook and Twitter can be great promotional tools, it’s important that you never overdo it. A third of your content on social media should be giving something back to your followers.
You could do this either through personal interaction or create fantastic content. The second third should be the sharing of other, related content that you curate from elsewhere.
And only the final third should be promotional in any way. It’s not an exact science, but it’s a good rule of thumb.
Does this help shine a little light on the subject? Let me know your thoughts on social media in the comments section below!
Cheers!
