Using social media to build your business is a great way to engage with your audience. Twitter has over 320 million businesses, stakeholders and consumers to engage with. And there are over 1 billion on Facebook and 300 million on Instagram. What are you waiting for? Social media is here to stay. So instead of waiting for the media to write their story, businesses can opt to share their own stories via social media.

For example, if you've now done your press release before, your product or your service that you want to promote, you can extend that message by sharing it via social media. Keep in mind that journalists rely heavily on Twitter and Facebook and our platform to source and research stories. When you share your story socially, you are meeting them where they are, instead of interrupting them in their inbox. Always a bonus. For example, share my stories on video. For example, you can look at sharing stories on video which can help build up your following or sharing data via infographics that people can pin, tweet, and share from your blog or your Facebook page.

Using social media can leverage your PR by making it more visible and social. You can add your social components to your PR plan, like I mentioned earlier, but as an editor campaign, or with some infographics and blog posts for an industry website or partnering expert in your industry, the possibilities are endless. Twitter campaigns can be very effective and drive traffic to your site, or video. Also, as I mentioned before, visual is very important in this day and age. As we're dealing with social media, it is so it is very visual people are scrolling and so if they see something that's repeated, it will stop them Most PR teams create customer case studies to highlight successes and build credibility. So while some customer stories make for a good write up, most people aren't really willing to invest a lot of time reading long articles these days because everybody's attention span seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

So instead of sharing a full case study, you can do it on social media instead of up to pick up bite size, but engaging key facts for from, for example, your clients success story, you know, and highlight those across the board. many stories are actually more powerful when told through the right channels on the right social channels. So if you present it in the right way, you can really, really get an emotional response that will promote prompt engagement and share with added officials and you have to Perfect content for social sharing, all with the aim of improving PR and brand image. Don't forget things like LinkedIn. Don't forget LinkedIn is great for business to business because it's the leading social platform for professional networking. And it also offers publishing, so you can share content quickly and know you're reaching the right audience.

So how else can you use social media? Well, if an industry story breaks, social media offers a prime way for you to offer an expert commentary and make an immediate impact on your audience. For example, when a government database is hacked, or a major story about security breach breaks, you know, I know not that long ago, the NHS was hacked, and cyber security firms reacted swiftly on all social fronts by helping others understand the situation. offering advice they themselves as experts as well as to attach to their products and their services. Before you connect yourself with a specific event in your industry, though, assess each opportunity as it arises and have a plan in place for when and how you respond. In the case of breaking news, always proceed with caution to ensure that you are adding value as you don't want anything to backfire and leave you with echo in your face.

I say that with with this in mind. So, recently, United Airlines try to get you know, their themselves trending. They decided to tap into a trending subject. So in 2017, a young a young person in America managed to get a large amount of retweets because he was on a mission to get some free nuggets from a fast food chain. Now, United Arab decided that they try and join in and offer free flights. But that timing was not very well set because they had simply forgotten.

Twitter hadn't forgotten or forgiven them for their most recent disasters. And the means came through thick and fast, you know, for them. It was for them, it was way too early for them to kind of jump in on such a light hearted subject. Because what turned into a nice offering of a free flight ended up turning into a bit of a PR nightmare for them because people will go in onto social media and saying, you know, don't take the flight, you might get jacked off, you know, because there's a whole debacle about the United Airlines and dragging them, the the passenger off. So it backfired. So that's why I say always proceed with caution.

But by focusing on social media, you'll be able to communicate your message directly with the right origins. Plus you'll be able, you'll be better able to connect with the media and bloggers where they are proactively looking for news and resources. So with you know, your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus, and new emerging platforms are coming up all the time. You know, it's no longer just for personal use. It's also for business use, but just need to identify the right platforms for you.