Tagging Your Business Thanks

photo credit: minimalistphotography101.com

This week, as our thoughts turn to a turkey dinner, family, and friends, it’s appropriate to consider who in our businesses we need to give thanks to for making our year successful. If you’re doing well in this economy – it’s no accident. And it’s unlikely that you will be able to pinpoint one single individual who has made the year successful. Rather, it is more likely that it was a series of people, contributing individually, as a team, and as a community coming together.

One sure-way to ensure that group of people continue to work toward your success in the future, is to recognize them for their efforts publicly. And if you’ve got your social media accounts up and running, you have a ready-made distribution outlet for publicizing your thanks.

If you haven’t ever tagged a post in Facebook, it’s extremely easy. First, you must be a friend/fan of the person or business you want to tag. Then it’s as easy as entering your thanks in the What’s Happening window. When you get to the name of the person or individual you want to thank, all you do is type “@” and then with no spaces, the person’s or business’ name. So if you wanted to thank me, it would be “@Tisha”. If Facebook is cooperating (it doesn’t always as you know), you’ll see a dropdown box appear with a list of your friend’s and fan’d business pages. Click on the right one and you’ll see the “@” symbol disappear and the name turn blue. That’s what’s called a “tag.”

Twitter is easier — just use the same @ convention and mention them on Follow Friday or just because you’re thinking of them. Just be sure to be specific about what you’re acknowledging them for and make them the entire focus of that tweet. (Don’t bundle them up with 10 other accounts – take your time, thank them properly.)

What you’ve just done is to publicly recognize the person who made your business a success. And because you tagged them in your post, you thanked them in a place that all of their friends/fans can see your appreciation. As an additional by-product, you’re also going to have the opportunity to elicit friends/fans from their pages to your own – and that’s good for your business because more people will be hearing your messages every time you post a message.

So consider who to give thanks to this week — and get busy thanking them in social media, in person, or in a note.