Never underestimate social media's power

30-May-2012 - Last updated on 31-May-2012 at 15:41 GMT

Kheng: "Social media such as Twitter and Facebook is becoming a great way to get your message across"

Do you use Facebook and/or Twitter? If not, why not? If you do, do you use it to your advantage and to its full potential?Social media such as Facebook and Twitter is becoming a great way, in some case the only way, to get your message across.

One of our sites has more than 1,600 local followers on Twitter (@CloudBarLincoln) and more than 1,600 friends on Facebook (cloudbar.lincoln). When we have a promotion or event coming up or simply want to tell our customers what guest ale we have just put on we can do so in an instant.

When it is quiet we often run a competition just for Twitter users or Facebook friends or both. We offer a free meal for two or a bottle of wine, and run the competition over a couple of days.

You would not believe what response we get. Compare this to the cost of an advert in your local press and how effective that is.
One aspect of social media I had not thought about was highlighted recently by trade chum Paul Wigham. This was the benefit of being able to add your followers and friends to the sales particulars.

Last year we sold one of our bars to JD Wetherspoon. The Facebook profile of that outlet had well over 2,000 friends. It did not occur to me until after the sale the value of the profile that I simply passed over.

Imagine selling a premises with a note on the particulars that reads ‘comes with more than xxx friends on Facebook and xxx followers on Twitter’? It’s a ready-made database of potential customers for a buyer.

Twitter and Facebook do, however, need some time to make sure you have the right followers. There are now professional Tweeters starting up, my son included. For a small fee they will make sure you have the right followers, increase your presence and get your message out.

As always there is a cost for the services of such companies but when you look at what you might be spending on advertising, paying someone to look after your social media may be the way forward.

There is nothing to stop you doing it yourself, or delegating the duty to someone else, or sharing the job. With the Cloud Bar, I tweet, the manager tweets and the supervisors tweet. This, we feel, keeps our followers updated on what is happening.

If you are not already signed up to Twitter or Facebook, do so and see what you can do — after all, it’s free.