A few weeks back we looked at the rise of Foursquare, and how this can potentially help your business. This week it’s the turn of Facebook’s home-grown equivalent, Facebook Places. The two programmes have a similar aim; they both allow you to check-in when you reach various locations, ensuring you never miss an opportunity to connect with those nearby.

Where they differ is that Foursquare has a competitive element, through its Mayor programme, whereas Facebook Places focuses on what Facebook does best – disseminating your published information to connect you with those around you.

Like Foursquare, Facebook Places offers the option of ‘claiming’ your place and advertising your business through the system; although your business has to be added by a user first. Consequently, it doesn’t appear to offer quite the same business advertising opportunities as Foursquare; but it is arguably better for personal contacts, with the might of Facebook behind it. Check-ins are automatically uploaded to your status feed, and Places has a wealth of functionality integrating it with Facebook, including the ability to share place recommendations and tag people.

Of course, as with all Facebook apps, there are some privacy issues to be aware of – your default Places setting will automatically publish your location in updates and include your name on a real-time list of Who’s Where. If you are using it as a social media tool, then this is probably what you want – high visibility. If it isn’t, then you’ll need to adjust your default setting.

Facebook Places is essentially another way to connect with your clients and associates. Still in its infancy, it won’t currently drive business by itself but could form an important part of an integrated social media campaign.

In the fast-paced business world, it is very easy to let updating elements of your social media campaign fall behind, especially Twitter. Luckily it is relatively simple to restart the machine, and keep on top of it moving forward.

Make sure your profile is up to date

Your profile can potentially be seen by everyone on Twitter, and it has been repetitively proven that users with pictures and full profiles attract more followers than those who tweet anonymously. It’s also worth spending time personalising your profile to reinforce your company’s branding through the site.

Auto-tweet

This is not something you should rely on, however, if you’re busy elsewhere, setting up a couple of scheduled tweets across a particularly testing period will keep your account current while you focus on other tasks. Programmes such as Hootsuite and Tweet Deck which enable you to pre-programme tweets are readily available.

Tweet by-proxy

Alternatively, share tweeting amongst company members. This not only avoids laps in activity but also helps create a variety of tweeted content.

Don’t forget to check in

It only needs to be once a day, but you do need to check for retweets, DMs and any other mentions of your company if you are to get the most out of your campaign. It’s also good practice to respond to as many of these as possible to encourage interaction.

Advertise

Make sure your website visitors are aware you have a Twitter account. The Twitter logo or a live feed can easily be included on most websites and as you get more followers, you’ll find yourself automatically motivated to keep up-to-date on your account.

Running a social media campaign is a time consuming business and the urge to set up a series of auto-updates can be overwhelming. It can also be quite effective if done correctly, but does have a series of drawbacks which prevent it achieving the same response as a personally run campaign; however, the time saved may justify this. So should you keep it personal or auto-update?

Obviously the biggest drawback with automated updates is the removal of personal response to your followers and fans. In automating the campaign you are unable to react as quickly or personally to any comments, questions or answers you may receive from those following you. It can also look as though you are ignoring a potential client if you don’t respond to their request but keep updating with other information – not a great selling tactic.

Similarly, it means you can only update pre-determined material, rather than reacting to industry news and events as they happen.
On the plus side, auto-updates enable you to update your site 24 hours a day, potentially interacting with followers around the globe in a way that would not be possible if you were only able to update in working hours. As any conversations that begin this way will be subject to delays because of the time difference, the downsides of auto-updating are largely offset.

In reality, a mixture of auto and personal updates will probably not harm your businesses social media profile, the damage really only occurs when a campaign becomes reliant on it.