One tweet can fill a conference room

Reach out to your business audience through social media, says Manar Al Hinai.

“A new restaurant has opened in town,” says one person.

“Oh really? what’s their Instagram page?” asks another.

This conversation is now the norm for many customers today. When my friends want to find a person or service, they often turn to Instagram instead of the internet’s search engines.

I have always been an avid social media user, from MSN messenger all the way to the visual-sharing mobile app SnapChat. The GCC’s youth population is so tech-savvy that they can be counted on to always have a new app. Entrepreneurs whose target audience is the young need to get in the game – if they are not already, they are behind.

For GCC youth, the most popular mobile apps today are Twitter, Instagram and SnapChat. Some time ago, I started following “Instakotob”, an Arabic account on Instagram that conducts book reviews. The user would upload an image of a book then write a short review, evaluating it . Within a few weeks, the account garnered 75,000 followers.

I also use my own Instagram account for writing purposes. I sometimes post an image of my articles, asking my followers what they think of my work.

There are even GCC retail businesses present on Instagram that use their pages to display their latest products, take orders and keep in touch with their customers.

“You don’t even need a website any more,” a colleague of mine noted recently. “If you have Instagram that’s enough.”

And it is not only retailers that have made use of this medium of social media. Social entrepreneurs and community initiatives have also jumped on board.

I recently started a community initiative called “Anjez”, which provides a series of motivational talks by Emirati pioneers targeted at youth. I depended on social media to get the word out about our events and attract supporters. And boy, did I make the right decision.

My team asked our speakers to post an advert for the event and the session they will be speaking at, tagging our Instagram/Twitter pages at the same time. They did so, and their followers then followed our pages and tagged their friends. Within a week our event was overbooked.

To test how well the social media campaign had worked, we asked those at the event itself how they found out about our initiative; almost 95 per cent said they did so through social media.

Not only do we use our pages to promote our events, but we also use them as an interactive platform. We asked our followers to nominate a speaker for our next events and to tag inspirational figures. Even our team members joined us after hearing about the initiative on social media.

As entrepreneurs, you need to go with the flow. If your customers are using social media, you need to be there too. Here are some different ways to use social media apps such as Twitter and Instagram. Keep in mind that the way you promote your brand on these channels is completely different to traditional marketing:

• Use these applications to tell a story about your brand rather than to just post an image of your product/service. Show them the behind-the-scenes images of your offices, or a video of your management members greeting your followers or wishing them a great weekend. Give your followers something worth following.

• Be interactive with your audience. If you run a magazine, ask your followers who they would like to see featured next. Make them feel part of your brand.

• Use your followers to your advantage. They could serve as focus group members by answering questions on your social media pages about their likes and dislikes. Test a product idea with them. Ask them how you could improve your brand, or what flavours they would like to taste next.

If handled well, social media can expand your business and increase your profits. The beauty about it is that it is probably the most effective media channel. And, more importantly, the cheapest.

Manar Al Hinai is an award-winning Emirati writer and communications consultant based in Abu Dhabi. Follow her on Twitter at @manar_alhinai.

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