Posted by nfroe on Dec 20, 2011 in social media | 4 comments

Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in, Manta and the millions of others out there are platforms to reach the people.  Not everyone knows how to use a search engine or even like to use search engines, but people love to write to friends, state their opinions and share pictures and memories with the people they love.  Most of these people have jobs or work for companies and spend more than 5 hours a day away from their homes, and they tell their friends where they work and post it as their job on their profiles and ultimately lead people to their Companies profile page.  At this point, having a strong presence is crucial, because chances are people will be visiting your businesses social media pages, whether they are chock full of information or not.  If you are the owner, office worker, manager or any other type of employee who is responsible for bringing in new business, then social media is the avenue to use.  Take time to read books, read forums, read help community support pages and build your company a money making profile page that is constantly dishing out new updates.

FACEBOOK

Facebook is perhaps the most powerful social media site, worth an estimated $84 Billion or more.  Facebook allows it’s members to create, customize and post on their user profiles that are set up with email addresses and passwords.  When looking at the frame work of what a user sees when browsing while logged in, there are three columns, one column contains their personal links, friends, photos, mail, pages connected to them and apps; the second column is a constantly refreshing wall that shows their friends posts and updates as well as their own updates; the very last column is the most important to business owners, this column contains the sponsored stories and sponsored ads that make Facebook possible.  See the image below

The third column located all the way to the right hand side of the inside of a Facebook profile, is where companies have the ability to become recognized by posting an ad through Facebook Ensight, the advertising option on Facebook.  This ad program allows you to customize your ad, target specific areas or age groups and designate a budget.  The trick to this type of ad is to narrow down your focus to include proven sales tactics, like if there is a certain age group you notice is more likely to purchase from you, it is best to begin by targeting these people first.

Another advantage to Facebook for any company, is the ability to add inbound linking to your website.  To better understand this, go to Google, type in [link:www.youdomainname.com] replacing the www.yourdomainname.com with your companies domain name, and click search.  You will see very limited results that show only those websites or organizations that are linking to your website.  This is important for Google to see when deciding whether you are relevant to be listed on the first page of a search result.  When you add Facebook to these results, it’s 800 million user powered relevancy will start to help your website get a little jump in it’s search engine ranking.

Though there are many wonderful features to look forward to in using Facebook, there are also a few other great social sites to consider as well.  Hire a technician to manage your account for you or make sure to read as much as possible about the power of Facebook.

Linked-In

Linked-in is a great place for business owners and professionals to market, network, recruit, hire, discuss and share.  Linked-in differs from Facebook in that it doesn’t allow multiple images, doesn’t really promote an ad system but rather makes use of multiple membership types and Linked-in allows professionals to specify their credentials, experience and focus on business as a main reason for joining.  This social site seems to have been designed with business professionals in mind, with the ultimate goal of networking business to business, or business to employee’s of other business’s.

Linked in Offers upgradable profiles for business’s to have the ultimate Linked in experience.  These upgraded profiles have the ability to see users who visit your profile, send out direct message and so much more.  Also, just like Facebook, Linked in offers you another inbound link to your company website and a proactive way to reach your customers when you want to share industry news, incredible specials, promotions and changes.

Within the frame work of a linked in profile, you will find various options.  Across the top navigation includes news, profile settings, contacts, groups, jobs, inbox, companies, and an option for more.  On the right hand side, you will find People you may know, tools, profile view count, connections (friends), and so much more.  On the left hand side you have your updates for you and your connections.  This structure is conducive to making new business connections and finding new ways to promote and raise awareness regarding your company and your products or services.  This is the ultimate social site for business owners and business professionals and definitely deserves attention.

Twitter

Can you say what you need to say in 140 characters or less?  Twitter is another unique social site that uses the principle that anything over 140 characters or less is useless or junk.  This frame work allows you to add a single image and follow profiles as well as allow profiles to follow you.  It doesn’t seem like Twitter will be a good way to promote your business, but the point is to invite people to your website!  Write short and sweet updates ending in the link to your website.  Use this platform to add extra fuel to your website marketing plan and get involved on a personal level with your customers.  Twitter for Businesses is all about branding the image.  The platform enables the company to brand their image in front of the public and create HYPE that really helps bring in the customers.

Read the information on Twitter for Businesses and start taking advantage of the tools Twitter has to offer.

YouTube

Blogging has become a very popular ritual for companies, but pod casting is also becoming a hot new trend.  Pod casting, posting a video blog, is the perfect way to appease the masses of fans that want to learn more about your company by having a one on one visual interaction with your company.  YouTube allows you to upload your pod casts, tag them, add descriptions and share the pod cast very easily on your blog or website.  The beauty of YouTube is in it’s ability to manage the weight of your video files and save space on your server, to create a channel for you to share with your fans, and to help your website gain even more exposure than it currently has.  In order to effectively make use of YouTube you must have videos to upload and share, and continue to create and share videos or pod casts as often as possible.  This helps your visual customers, who maybe don’t know how to read or prefer not to read to also have the opportunity to learn more about your company, your products, and gather information before purchasing.

Another less often used method of YouTube is the ability to just add an audio of your website by recording yourself or an appointed employee reading the content on your page.  Again, not everyone in the world can read or comprehend what they read, so the ability to share your content by recording it and linking to the video on your website is a wonderful way to make sure that you get your point across.

Other Great Social Sites

Digg, Stumble Upon, Reddit, Manta, MySpace, and many more social sites are also available to make use of for promoting your company and linking to your website.  The more you get involved actively to support your brand, products and services the more chances you have to produce massive amounts of traffic that can be turned into money!  Research the different types of social sites and their pros and cons to see what will work and steadily build your company a social media web.  This will help your website and eventually your business to become a well known name in your industry.  It is said that if a person sees something twenty-five times or more, they are more likely to remember that company when they need a service it offers, so make sure you make this possible for as many people as possible.  It only takes a few hours a week and MTK Designs is here to help if you are in the market for social media marketing or search engine marketing to super charge your online business.

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Social Media Videos:

Social Media Revolution by Erik Qualman

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Social Media Facts 2011 by Deonlinestrateeg

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