Collaborative and Interactive Social Media Platforms

            Social Media is a great resource for businesses, from small home-based businesses top huge corporations. Social media platforms are a tool that when utilized correctly can take a business to the next level by giving them a new and important way to connect with potential customers. In fact social media has become so important for businesses that a whole new career has been born, Social Media Specialist is not a job title at most large companies.  According to Brian Hughes, CEO of Integrity Marketing and consulting, “Great social content shapes how prospective customers perceive your business’s brand and starts building loyalty long before these folks ever make a purchase.” The newest tools available on social media are interactive tools such as, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Periscope. Though these are fun and exciting for personal use they are incredibly useful from a business perspective.

            A point by postplanner.com, “Live streaming is all about connecting and interacting with your audience in real time. It breaks down barriers and creates a connection that transcends traditional marketing limitations.” They go on to say ask the question to consumers about what we remember more, reading an interesting article or a video where you have the chance to contribute to the conversation, they say that research says the video wins every time.

            As a small business co-founder this makes me consider ways that our business could use live-streaming to connect with our audience. Not only is it helpful to do live-stream videos but content is also important. The content needs to be interesting, informative and something that will keep your audience involved. In thinking about use for it within my business I thought how it might be interesting to live-stream some of our production process. I run a small bee-keeping and honey business with a partner and people are always fascinated with the process but never get to see it up close and personal. I think it would be a great way for our company to stay interesting by utilizing live-streaming to teach about bees and the honey extracting process. I feel like this would not only be interesting for our followers but I think it would also provide a space where potential customers would come for information about our product.

            Like was pointed out earlier interactive social media platforms are allowing businesses the opportunity to create brand-loyalty long before a purchase is ever made. I like to think that if we did some of these videos and people watched them the next time they needed honey they would remember our live-streams and look to us for their purchase. There is the chance that they wouldn’t, that they only watched for the entertainment value but the great thing about social media is that we can market our product on a very low budget and live-streaming is just one more tool we can use to our advantage.