I WAS interested to read last week that Southern Downs Regional Council (SDRC) officers had recommended council make use of Facebook and Twitter.

Great idea, until I read that councillors wanted to ensure no one could comment on the posts, and the communications officer assured them they’d be used only to direct users to the council’s website.

This highlighted to me the continued – and obviously high-level – misunderstanding that persists around the use of social media for business.

When you’re using social media for business, it is 100% about engagement.

It’s an online conversation with your existing and potential customers, clients and stakeholders. If you’re not using it to engage with them, then frankly you have no business being there.

Preventing users from commenting on posts will do more damage to the SDRC brand than good.

If you’re not allowing your users to engage with you, then you’re there to hear the sound of your own voice and that’s not what social media for business is about.

You’re wasting your money embarking on a social media campaign if all you’re doing is replicating your site information.

Imagine the damage you’d do to your Palmerin Street bricks-and-mortar business if you had a sign on the window saying, “Yes, we have just what you need! But you need to head over to our Wood Street store to get it.”

It’s not an expensive exercise. I manage five Facebook pages. It takes about 20 minutes morning and afternoon to check them, make posts and acknowledge users.

Facebook integrates with Twitter, so you post there and it auto-tweets your updates.

Third-party apps such as TweetLater and TweetDeck allow you to set up tweets in advance and keep track of what’s happening across multiple platforms and accounts.

Browser add-ons such as Yoono let you make updates across multiple accounts quickly and easily.

And TweetBeep lets you keep track of any mentions made of your business, with alerts coming to your email.

You WANT to know what people are saying about your business. You WANT to engage with users.