Everyone wants to do business with experts in their respective fields, and it makes them feel that they have the right person for the job. This removes the risk of choosing a vendor and this gives them peace of mind. Establishing expertise and credibility is a two-step process. First, you need to know, what are your prospects, and second is providing help by giving non-sales answers.
If you do not know the questions, there are plenty of platforms where people are publicly asking the questions, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and etc. few of the most popular social platforms.
Once you are aware of the questions, it’s time to create some compelling and helpful answers. Here are some of the social media platforms, where one can have the biggest impact.
Blog
A blog is a place for creating quality content that can address the prospects’ biggest concerns the audience has been looking for. Use the most common questions from your prospects and then turn them into keyword-rich content on your blog. If people are facing similar kinds of problems and are searching for answers on Google, they will find your blog post, and this may give you the opportunity to connect with them.
YouTube
Whether it is YouTube or any other video-sharing platform there on the web, try and create “how-to videos” on the same topics you tackle in your blog. These videos often show up in the search results, and for many people, a video is more informative than a written blog.
To increase your return, create a blog post explaining and embed it in your post. You can further extend the reach of your video by using websites and uploading the video to multiple video-sharing platforms at once.
Twitter
The prospects are there on Twitter as well, asking tons of questions or expressing their frustration. Visit http://search.twitter.com and there you can look for specific keywords and how you can respond to those people using Twitter.
Once you can find the questions or the tweets you can respond to them in a helpful manner, or in an informative way, try answering them in the prescribed characters, or by pasting the link to a blog post or video you have created that can answer the questions people are asking. If you provide them with a quality answer, there is a better chance that you may in response gain a new follower.
Facebook
Establishing expertise on a platform such as Facebook is going to be focused on how to create a fan page for your business and participate in other appropriate groups and pages.
You can provide content on your page that helps your audience and link to the relevant resources. On others pages and groups, you can answer the questions as they come up. However, it is better not to try or hijack someone else’s group or page to benefit your own agenda.
One must always remember that social media is not a place for the hard sell. The goal is to establish credibility by helping the prospects. This will attract more people to the business or service.