Ö÷²¥´óÐã

Each week, a specialist in a business subject joins us in the studio for 5 live's On The Money to answer your business questions. Lloyd Davis is founder of The Tuttle Club, London's Social Media Café. He's been answering your questions about how best to use social media for your business.

I'm interested in using social media as advertising, but posting on Facebook and Twitter for people to take part in prize draw resulted in about 5 signups! What is the key to getting initial traction? - Rob, via text

The real keys are patience and persistence - this is not necessarily a space in which you can expect immediate results from strangers. Get to know a few more people, find out what they really need and see if you can provide some of it for them. Overall, remember that social media is not simply an advertising platform, it's a way of building business relationships.

We only occasionally have interesting things to 'broadcast' to customers. Are we going to get any followers if we just broadcast very occasional announcements e.g. every month? - Ben via email

You're probably not going to get many people interested in this sort of thing unless they have a very good reason for wanting the information you're sharing (it helps them to do something that they want to do). I'd suggest you take a critical look at what you think is "interesting" - often we don't actually ask people what it is that they're interested in and when they finally get to tell us the answers can be surprising. Ask a few customers what they want from you.

How to I make full use of social media to attract potential employees? - Thomas, via Twitter

Do good work and talk about it, a lot. Be yourself and act with integrity and then use these media to show what it is that you do to as many people as possible and enter into conversation with those people about what motivates them.

How can a small Accountancy firm use Twitter or Facebook? - Peter, Taunton via text

If you want to get more local clients, it may be that you focus on establishing your identity and what differentiates you from other local firms. Searching for local small businesses in these social spaces who might be prospective clients can pay off as long as you approach them with care - treat it like a local chamber of commerce networking event or similar. You go to introduce yourself and make connections, gradually build awareness and trust among the local community. Always think about what the real-world equivalent is for what you're doing. When we don't get immediate feedback, sometimes we have a tendency to treat people online in ways that we'd never dream of if they were standing in front of us.

Have you used social networks successfully in your business? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Related links
On the Money 26/09/10 - see a photo of Lloyd in the 5 live studio
- Lloyd's blog
- social media "club" co-created by Lloyd
- Lloyd on Twitter

On The Money goes out on 5 live between 8 and 9pm every Sunday night