Social Media outlets and trying to keep up with them!

Social Media this, social media that. Seems like the two most common words we hear these days. What is it? How can it help your floral design business? Seems like a bunch of hoopla, eh?

Let’s start with twitter.com (because it’s my favorite). You have 140 characters to use per comment! Short, sweet & to the point. Twitter actually launched in July 2006 although I’d be willing to bet it’s popularity grew in 2008 when social media started to gain momentum. I like it because I have connected with floral designers and other wedding vendors throughout the US and abroad. During the busy wedding season many of my floral friends post photos of the designs they are working on, so fun & inspiring. It’s a great way to make an announcement, perhaps you are in the latest issue of a magazine and you want to let others know! I signed up w/ the intention of being inspired by others, I didn’t expect to receive business. I have been pleasantly surprised, yes, I’ve received business as a direct result of people I’ve meet on twitter.
I maintain our twitter account: @flirtyfleurs
My biz can be followed at @bellafiorievent and Chuck can be found at @ChuckGrahamFD

Facebook, oh Facebook. The major Social Media outlet. I will admit, I’m not a big facebooker, it’s almost too overwhelming! Chuck is the person behind our Facebook page. Although, I have been getting a bit more into lately since I figured out how to link our tweets directly into the Facebook page.. One of these days I’m going to take a class on how to use Facebook efficiently for business, I’ll let you know how that goes & what I learn.

LinkedIn, the portal for business social media.

Blogging! A great way to get the word out about your business. Easy to update on a daily basis or you can schedule posts out as far as you like. Blogging is great for SEO. I have booked plenty of business from my Bella Fiori Blog. I currently blog using blogger.com from google although I should switch to wordpress. The SEO from wordpress will blow you away! (The switch is on my to-do list)

Google+ – yet, another social media outlet. Chuck has been working on a page for us. I can’t say I know much about it. If anyone wants to let us know the pros & cons I’d love to hear them!!

Pinterest – HUGE! People are flocking to this site. There are a lot of interesting articles online about this site and how popular it has become. check out this article.
I find it to be a nice tool for keeping some inspiration boards for my brides. Bella Fiori & Chuck Graham

The most common concern with social media is finding the time to manage it! I came across Postling.com which is a website that helps you manage your social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blog services on Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, Typepad, Squarespace and Drupal, plus, Youtube & flickr accounts. I set up Bella Fiori on Postling.com to see how I like it. I do see that you have to upgrade to get all the features. “Postling Premium allows you to track your latest reviews on Yelp and CitySearch as well as monitor the web in real-time or via RSS. Premium members can also sort their social media accounts into multiple brands. Postling Premium costs $24.99 per month.” For now I’m sticking with the free service & we’ll see how that goes. It looks to me to be quite easy to use. Tie in your different accounts, post a comment and decide on which sites the comment should appear and you can even schedule the time. I have not tried the blogging capabilities just yet.
(BTW- the makers of Postling.com also created Etsy.com, isn’t that interesting?)

I hear a lot of people use Hoot Suite to track all their online social media. I haven’t checked into it yet. Here’s their website: HootSuite

Instagram “Sharing on multiple platforms is a pain – we want to take a picture once, and have it shared (instantly) on the services of our choice.” Great for posting pictures using your iPhone.

For another article on social media check out a Kevin Kowalczyk’s article previously posted on Flirty Fleurs.

Ok – there’s my two cents on social media. Social media changes daily, I’ve been working on this post for awhile and can barely keep up with the new outlets to mention in this post! My advice, pick one or two you like and keep up with those…