What’s a hashtag? When should you use one? If you tweet, will anyone read it?
Members of the Buy Local organization posed these and other questions during their monthly luncheon at the Pirate’s House on Thursday with digital development manager Jesse Bushkar on hand to address their social media struggles.
Their questions reflect not just the increasing number of small businesses using social media to enhance their online presence but the problems they face in trying to use Facebook, Twitter and other platforms efficiently.
“Every day, every week there’s a new thing, so when I talk to people about social media marketing, it just turns into a blur and they don’t know where to spend their time,” said Bushkar. “They either spend all their time spread across each of these things, or they just give up and say, ‘I’m not going to do it.’”
Bushkar said there is no one right way to implement a social media strategy. It mostly comes down to trial and error.
“The important part is understanding how you want to communicate with your customers and then bringing the right technology,” he said.
Bushkar supervises a team of web programmers at the Bluffton-based BFG Communications, working on national marketing campaigns and digital content for companies including Coca-Cola and Campari.
“I like to think of hashtags as thought bubbles,” he said in response to a question about the pound-sign generated links used commonly on Twitter. “Technology by itself is not the answer, but the right technologies paired with the right problems can have a profound effect on your business.”
Bushkar said it was important for owners and proprietors to utilize these platforms personally before putting their businesses on them. Ultimately, it comes down connecting with the right audience.
“I can’t stress enough that the question that you start with shouldn’t be, ‘How can I use Facebook?’ it’s ‘How can I communicate with my customers?’” he said.