I had the opportunity to attend a morning session class yesterday at our local chamber office on social media for your business. Since I’m personally addicted to Facebook (yes I admit it) I thought I might be wasting my time. But I’m so glad I attended the class taught by Stephanie Wells, Executive Director of Anderson County Tourism Council. She explained the first step in good marketing is a great website. After the website is posted then it is time to join the world in social media. Not only is it a great place to showcase your business, most of the items I’m talking about today are free.
FACEBOOK: Facebook popularity is growing daily. There are over 300 million people on Facebook with the fastest demographic being age 35 and older. Sixty-Five million users access Facebook on their mobile device and are twice as active as a regular user. What can Facebook do for your business? First of all, it can give you one-on-one communication with consumers. You can create a free fan/group page to gain exposure, measure demographics, create surveys and tests, offer rewards and increase sales. Social networks can also generate more people to your website.
TWITTER: Twitter is another fast-growing social network your business should be taking advantage of. It is a free way to stay connected to customers/potential customers where you can get feedback, give advice on new products, etc. You can even incorporate your Twitter feeds into your website.
MYSPACE: Be sure and create a free page on MySpace to reach as many people as possible. Remember to link the page back to your website. Although MySpace has many users, it has a younger audience which may fit your businesses needs.
Businesses should also consider purchasing advertisement with the above social networks. Although there is a fee involved, it really isn’t that expensive to get your word out. Be on the cutting edge of digital marketing while reaching the audience according to your needs. The great thing about social networks is their database of users’ demographics so you can advertise to a huge audience or you can narrow it down to your smallest targeted audience. It is easy to post an advertisement. Just follow the simple steps on each site for more information.
WORDPRESS: Create a free blog for your customers weekly. This blog could be about new products or you could feature a product of the week or just give your customer tips or advice. Connect this blog to all other avenues such as Facebook and your Website to get the most exposure and save time.
YOUTUBE: Every business should have a free YouTube page. You can list your videos that are ten minutes in time or less. This would be a great place to showcase your commercials and commercials from your vendors about the products you sell. You can also link these videos into your social networks and webpage.
RSS FEED: Now you are asking how will you manage all these accounts? Set up all your accounts where you can view them on one page using RSS feeds. There are several sights to choose from, but I recommend using widgets which are applications on NetVibes.
You are probably past information overload by now, but I just touched the tip of the iceberg. Do you have more recommendations about placing your business on social network or any success stories? I would love to hear your story or opinion!
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