mlr3cffjYhymHPTsI3vN3OD02lanAV: Social

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Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Two Things That Influenced Social Media Privacy

Social media privacy is influenced by two things in the world. One of them is offline friendships and the second thing is the existing Pay per Click channels. These two things affected how the social networks set themselves up and how they would do business in the future. The offline friendships gave the social networks the free model that they needed to generate the user base, and the Pay per Click systems taught the social networks how to monetize that model.

The original social networks were run by college kids that were only interested in staying in contact with each other. They knew each other well and knew each other's friends. They knew if a person liked the other person then their network would probably be a good base of people to know as well. There would be familiarity and those people in their network may end up being good friends too if they met. This meant that the social networks allowed everyone to view everyone else's friends because that gave them the best chance to grow their database of friends and have more relationships.

However, this does not work in the real world. These sites became popular and started to be used for networking purposes. This meant people would add other people into their networks that they did not necessarily know well, but they wanted to have contact with in the future. They also had business contacts in their profiles that other business people should not see (because they were a secret provider of X and if every competitor knew about how to get X, they would put that business out of business). This means that the social networks are not well made for business purposes.

The existing Pay Per click channels added the structure for monetization. The social networking systems and the search engines have two things in common. They offer a free service and they offer an advertising model based on that service. The free service may be the most useful part of the system. It definitely drives the Pay per Click side of the business because the people who use the free part of the system are the people who the businesses want to reach on the systems. Social media is no different; they have a wide base of active people on their system that the business owner wants to reach. Therefore, the social networks copied the monetization methods of the search engines.

However, the search engines never could get as much information as the social media systems. The social media systems have the advantage that they were built for personal relationships. Therefore, people on the social networks are accustomed to releasing the information to the social network. This is not true on the search engines, because the paradigm is different. The people on a search engine are looking for a solution, on the social networks they are looking to be entertained and to socialize with friends. This dynamic alone makes it difficult for the search engines to get as much information as the social media systems can and do get from their users.

These two things influenced how social media would be used in the future and how they monetized their system. However, the friendship model was the most important piece of influence because it influenced how the default settings worked on the social networking systems. The setting is usually set to let everyone see the profile no matter who they are (friend, family, or complete stranger). Therefore, this is what influenced social media privacy the most.

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How to Use Social Media Privacy to Make More Money

The fact of the social media systems is that they are trying to gather as much information about a person as possible. However, a smart marketer uses this to their advantage because they are able to see how the social system targets their users through social media use. A marketer that uses a social system should know everything about how a social media system will target their target market.

Obviously, the first thing to do is to start a new profile to release information with the intention of seeing how the social system targets the advertisements to that profile. This means that the social user's intentionally giving up information that may or may not be false with the intention of deriving information about how the social system will work in the future for their business.

This is a very smart idea because a marketer who understands how a social media system markets their product is a person who can predict how much they will spend and how effective that spending will be on the social media system. This allows them to make judgment calls on how effective the social media system will be for the business in the future and whether or not the social media systems are appropriate for the businesses use.

This new profile is the key because a social user should not use their social media profile. This is because that will bring him or her closer to buying something on impulse that they would not have gotten before using the social media system. The new profile protects the user from making impulse buys while testing the system to see how effective it will be for the business.

If anything is the key to advertising on the Internet or in real life, it is the ability of a marketer to test a system before they roll it out to the general populace. The social networking systems are no different. This is because the system can be tested for effectiveness and therefore they can be tested to see if they will deliver a favorable result for that particular marketer.

Understanding a social system as much as possible before using the system is a very smart idea. This will give the marketer an idea of what to expect when advertising on the system. Most marketers do not know what to expect when using the social networking system, therefore, they are not prepared for the situations that arise when using a social system. A marketer who takes the time to use the system before they market on the system is better off than those who do not take the time.

In conclusion, it is smart to make the time to learn about a social system before using the social system to advertise. The people who take the time to do this are far more prepared than those people who do not take the time to get ready to use the social media systems. Therefore, a marketer should always try to learn as much about the system they are going to use before they have to use it.

How Interviewing Experts Helps SEO and Social Media Marketing Efforts

Interviewing experts helps build the credibility of the business. This is because interviewing experts helps show that the business is interested in getting the highest amount of good information possible for their clients and themselves as well.

To make a good impression in social media marketing, interview experts and influential individuals within the niche and post videos of the interviews on YouTube. Not only is this going to be interesting to those on the site, but if a person shows that they have an association with those that are respected in their field, they will grow in reputation by default. Inspiring customer credibility and confidence helps sell more of the company's products and services.

Even though people do not think about it, video sites are social media sites. In fact, video sharing sites might be some of the first social networks in existence. Therefore, the use of videos in social sharing sites is a good thing. Therefore, a business that can come up with relevant videos and post them on social sharing sites may experience a rapid growth in their social media follower list. All that the business needs to do is refer them to their social media profile and most of the people who are interested will follow (or friend) the social media profile as needed.

A business may also interview an expert and allow the audience to participate through a webinar or a phone interview. The interview should be presentation based and only allow questions and answers at a particular time. The best thing to do is to have the questions moderated so that the attendees cannot hijack the call for their own purposes (i.e. pitch their own business in middle of the webinar).

Another place where traditional social media could be useful is attracting an audience to the interview. The social media systems are great at advertising and generating attendees to events because the events are social in nature themselves. This means that the social media user is transferring from one social media platform to another and this generally increases the conversion of a social media user to an attendee of an event quickly and easily.

In closing, there are many uses to interviewing an expert because of the many benefits that interview will give the interviewer in the long run. Not only will the interview generate more publicity for the interviewer and interviewee, it also gives them another asset to load on to a social networking video site. Therefore, they have another asset to rank on the first page of the search engines. This means that they can knock other users off the first page of a keyword if properly targeted. It also can serve to defend the brand when another user uses a video to try to release an attack on the business itself. Therefore, this interview is not only a great way to generate interest and authority. It also has SEO applications that even stretch to the ability of the website to defend itself in the end. Therefore, an interview is always a good thing for a business to schedule and execute.

What Needs To Be Ready For A Social Networking For Business Campaign to Succeed

A business owner needs to be ready for the amount of chatter that comes from entering the social networking realm. If the social media realm is about anything, it is about the amount of chatter that a business or person is able to post on the site. This chatter is anything from questions about a product or service or straight heckling of those products and services. In fact, it is not a stretch to say that anyone who runs a social networking campaign needs to have thick skin to run his or her campaign effectively.

Many leading marketing experts say that if a business does not have enemies than it does not stand for anything. The truth about social media is that any post that is not set to private (an important factor for any business social networking platform) is subject to scrutiny by the community who uses a certain social media platform. The business owner and the person who is assigned to the social networking campaign must have thick skins. This is because those hecklers who are the social networks are trying to get the business owner or person assigned to the campaign to take the insults personally. However, the ability to manage the those feelings is important (as well as the ability to remove those comments through the social networking platform so they are not a distraction for other companies or individuals trying to make a buying decision).

The person running the social networking campaign also needs to be properly trained to handle the campaign as well. One of the biggest mistakes that a manager or business owner can make is the assignment of a social networking campaign to a person who has no training to run the campaign effectively. Social networking is an art form and takes a certain kind of etiquette to be effective. What most people do when first starting a social media campaign is to try to gain as many followers as they can in a short period of time. However, this is rarely ever effective for developing new business contacts. Many of the people who a business can "friend" or "follow" are actually not people, they are what are called "bots" in marketing communities. They are really computer programs that pull down lists of users and add them to their "friend" or "follow" lists. These bots hope that real users will "follow" or "friend" them back. Trying to gain a following that is large from the start is the wrong approach to social networking. This approach is also is rarely ever effective.

A social media manager also should be skilled at "pacing" other users. This means that the user of social media should be able to match the language of other users in the system. The ability to speak like other users increases the chances of the business to develop real relationships that are beneficial for the business. The inability to do this can cause a business to not to able to relate to the community. Therefore, the business will be ignored by the target market and effectively be tuned out by the community.

A business should never take an employee and put them in front of a computer to manage the social networking campaign. There are many nuances that a person needs to know before they are able to effectively run a campaign. This person needs to have thick skin and the ability to mimic the speech patterns of the target market on the social networks. A person who has these qualities can be very effective at leading and generating revenue from social media programs.

Local Vs National Social Networking For Business

Many people want to know if it is better to focus on local or national social networking for business. The truth about this is that it depends on what the goals of the company. However, there are downsides and upsides to focusing on both approaches. Each can be effective, but the timing of each method really depends on what state the business is in at the moment that the decision is made that they should join the social networks.

In general, it is better for a company to focus on the local area first. This is because the company can catch the low hanging fruit in their business. There is far less competition in the local area than the whole world. This allows a business to train in a small pond before they invest a lot of time and money in competing with the big boys in a market place. Too many businesses try to be larger than their skill level allows them. This causes them to lose a lot of money in advertising. This is no different than testing a message in direct mail. A message can be sent to a very small portion of the list. This allows a business to get an idea of the effectiveness of the ad before they jump into the deep end with both feet. This is the smartest strategy that a business can take before they spend a lot of money in a market that may not be profitable.

One of the problems with marketing to a smaller town is that the town may not have the statistical relevance necessary to make an educated guess. This lack of relevance makes it very hard to test a message. There is a major search engine that says that 1000 actions are needed before statistical relevance is achieved. However, this is not possible in some markets because a person may only get 20 visitors a day. These visitors may not click anything, which means that it could take years to finally get to that 1000 action threshold. This is a massive problem that should be considered before a business makes the choice to be local first.

The solution may not be to be national, however. Even though the pool is larger, it takes skill to manage the amount of clicks that can come into a server. The competition is also much stiffer and a company may never generate much traffic unless the person managing the campaign is a master of driving social media traffic. A business can also experience explosive growth where the business cannot keep up the demand placed on them. This is a massive problem that should be avoided.

The real answer to this question depends on where the business is before it enters the social media platforms. There are pros and cons to targeting the local area and the national area. However, it is always smart to start small and work up from there. This allows a business to learn the pitfalls in their marketing message and allows them the business owner to make changes as needed.

How Privacy on the Social Networks Will Be Decided in the Future

Privacy on the social media systems has become a large issue. This is because there have been many times in the last few weeks where people and businesses have overstepped their bounds as it relates to the platforms. This begs the questions of how private are the social networks and how private should they be?

Social networking is a relatively new phenomenon in the world. Although, the idea of social networking has existed for many years, it was not until recent when the technology became available as it is known right now. There were bulletin boards and even e-mail itself that handled some of the things that people can do with the social networking systems. However, social media platforms are the first technology to grab such a large market share. In fact, it is hard to find someone who does not at least have a profile on the major social networks. That is just how big they have become now in the world today.

The size of the social networks and the amount of people using the systems now warrants the bigger companies' attention. They are all focused on, "how do we use this medium to make more money or do things more efficiently." There is nothing wrong with this thought process, however, businesses have started to use the social media systems inappropriately.

There have been cases of people who have been asked to surrender their social media login information to companies so that they could keep their jobs. This is a gross overstepping of the boundaries between work and personal life. However, in the current climate of rules governing social media, this is legal. This is because no rules have been made about the separation between where a person works and how a person lives outside their work. Politicians are clamoring to make sure rules are in place, but the system is slow. Therefore, a person must be careful with what social media networks they enter and how they manage what they say on those networks.

The real question in all of these fights is how private should the social networks really be, and what is considered public and what is considered private on the social media systems. Technically, social media could be considered public domain because of the amount of users who use the system. The status updates are available for everyone to see on the social networks, therefore, an argument could be made that the social networks are intended to be public domain. However, the users of the systems know better, the social network updates they post to the system are intended to be private and only for those friends and family they select on the networks. However, this is a battle that must be settled in the court room.

In the future, it will become clearer about what is the acceptable use of information contained on a social network. Therefore, there will be a clear cut way of making sure that the courts know what was intended for privacy. This may be as simple as setting the profile to default to privacy on every post and keeping the profile hidden unless the user chooses someone to be in their network. Whatever the case may be, it is smart of the user to keep everything as hidden as possible on their social network because that privacy will keep them out of trouble in the future.

Social Network Marketing - Where Is It Going?

Social network marketing is becoming one of the best methods to make money on the Web today.

Some people are already generating significant incomes, while some others are getting nowhere with their efforts.

If you are yet to get started with the social media marketing craze, there are a couple of things that you should really know before you venture into this competitive market.

Social Network Marketing Systems

One of the first things you should do is to have a look at what your competition is doing on social media sites, call it spying whatever, discover what they're doing.

You'll find a considerable number of names turning up all of the time, and those are the successful ones who you should be following. Social networking is just like cultivating friendships off-line, you stay in contact and you spend boring hours with these people and learn about them. Unlike a standalone website, it's all about interaction. The word "social" means precisely that.

When you make a decision to enter the arena of social networking you've got to build your persona, make people believe that they know you and like you, and most critically trust you.

You almost certainly already have a private Facebook fan page that you visit all the time to have interaction with your real mates, you are being sociable with them.

If you have an interest in building up a business on Facebook you actually should keep your business life and your social life separate, and that implies building a separate page for your business. Nobody is going to take you seriously if your business postings are mixed up with your personal life, for instance posting photographs of yourself at the beach in a bikini is fine on a personal page, though not on a business page. If you are conducting business people will simply not take you seriously. Few people will buy anything from you if you come across as being a party animal. So it is essential to brand yourself separately as a serious business person, and you will have to keep both your personalities separate.

Video Social Network Marketing

One of the finest ways of making money is through YouTube, it is one of the most well liked platforms today, so if you're going to get into social network marketing, you had better find out how to make good videos and show your face!

If you are camera-shy then you're going to be forced to get over it, if you haven't a clue how to make videos, learn.

There are tons of programs out there to help; of course, making videos has become a vital component of marketing today, in mails, on social network sites and on sites.

It's just like in the old days of face to face marketing, when people went out and stood in malls, or invited people to their house for Tupperware parties, when people see you like and trust you, then they're going to buy.

In layman's terms social marketing is attraction marketing.

Always show your face and ensure you are all grins! You'll never become successful if you hide behind an impersonal avatar, or post an image of your dog!

Glaringly in social media folk wish to start to know you and what makes you tick. If you do push your business via social media sites, you may expect to encounter folks who need to socialize too much, and you'll have to be taught how to be respectful to keep those diversions as low as possible. In fact, this is how you hope to earn your revenue, so you must keep your real socializing separate.

The Key is to master the art and science of social network marketing for online mlm lead generation. Think attraction marketing.

Think leads. Think branding.

Think about "building a business" not just a downline.

For instance, done properly you can create leads on demand, pocket thousands of bucks in commissions, and sign up more leads in a month than most folks do all year long... By simply promoting one massive online social network marketing system.

Social Media Networking: Be an Active Participant With Relevant News, Articles, and Assistance

The success for any type of social media networking is active participation. Yes, technology allows us to become automated in just about every aspect of postings through cyberspace. The convenience of scheduling blog posts to Twitter, then to Facebook, then to LinkedIn is a great time save, but we must set a daily reminder to become engaged personally in our social networking.

I admit with a red face I've been guilty of allowing my automation take over and have become absent as a live person via my social networking. I have given myself the good old slap upside the head and no longer will I allow myself to become the absentee marketer.

As of late, I've downloaded the Twitter application (app) to my Droid phone, providing me the opportunity while waiting for my daughter to come out of basketball practice or religion to engage with fellow Tweeters. This is proven to be a successful way of engaging for me and have connected with current and new colleagues, potential clients in the children's publishing industry, and for those seeking out assistance with their social media campaigns. Twitter works perfectly on the Droid phone because of the rolling screen of Tweets. Thanks Twitter, for keeping tweets to 140 characters!

Luckily my family gave me an iPad several years ago and I've downloaded the Facebook and Twitter apps to further engage with others. I personally like the Facebook app on the iPad since it's a much larger screen than my Droid phone.

Mind you, I do try to keep my personal social interaction down to 30 minutes per day so I'm not spending the majority of my time away from my valuable writing, editing, Author PR Services time, and of course my family.

Key attributes in becoming an active social media networker:

Share relevant information to followers, friends, and colleagues (whatever the specific social media network calls them). If you are a children's book author share... the latest publishing industry news you've read about, your latest magazine article publication or book release, children's book fair events, children's book conferences (such as SCBWI by region), your experience in conducting school visits, etc. The list is endless. Important to note, don't make it all about you. Shout out the successes of your colleagues.

Engage in online chats through social media networks. For example, on Facebook search groups you are interested in joining... such as, teachers, librarians, parents, schools. Participation is imperative, so I strongly suggest you do not join more than 1-2 groups per social media network you are a member of.

Offer tips and assistance from your expert standpoint. When a particular topic is being discussed and you have experience in said topic, join in the conversation and engage. You will be pleased and amazed on how much people appreciate your feedback and they will remember that in the future. You will eventually be known as the go to person in your field of expertise, which often times leads to much more than you ever provided.

Don't fall into the "it's all about me attitude." This is a sure fire way to turn people off. Don't chat about your specific book or product unless the conversation specifically lends to it.

Once you join a group on most of the social media networks you are able to set an email option to be reminded of the latest discussions in the group so you remember to participate. You can also set a reminder through your To Do/Tasks option in your email. I utilize Outlook for my email and I'm constantly updating and checking off my To Do/Tasks list, which by the way gives me great satisfaction in checking off the latest item. Yep, I'm a list person and love to see the list of checked off tasks! I tell my girls all the time, if it's not on my list it won't get done.

Happy networking and remember don't overload yourself!

Until next time...

Donna M. McDine

Publicist & Award-winning Children's Author

Why Controlling the Points of Contact in Social Media Campaigns Is So Important

Controlling how people can contact a business through the social media programs is very important. Most sales funnels are generated around a certain contact type. This means that a person can circumvent this system by using a means of contact that is not related to the approved contact type. Ultimately, this skews the effectiveness of the sales funnel because the contact type was not trackable within the system. Therefore, a person or business will not know for sure how effective their advertising campaign is or was because the system has skewed results.

Every sales funnel is a machine. This means that the machine has a maximum effectiveness rate. To make this more clear that means that any sales funnel has a number of leads and sales that it will never be able to beat because the machine is only capable of delivering X amount of sales or leads. Therefore, a business owner must keep testing and tweaking their site until they are certain that they are at this top end. A business must keep working to reach this top end until they are absolutely sure that they have reached this level, then and only then should a business look into creating another campaign.

However, a business cannot do this if they do not effectively control how the potential customer can contact them. This is because the numbers will be skewed towards the preferred contact type that the potential customer wishes to use. The only way to have relevant data and statistical relevance is to control the outcome by limiting the factors to two approved contact types. Either the potential customer contacts through the approved contact method or they chose to decline the offer. Any other method of contact skews the data and makes the data useless because it s contact outside of the parameters of the test.

Controlling the contact methods also allows a business owner to control who and what type of contacts reach them from the social media system. As with any system with a social media touch, a person or business that uses their social media actively opens themselves up to attacks from the social media users. This means that the business may find their inbox full of e-mails designed to attack the user. This is a bad situation but an unfortunate part of the internet marketing game. Therefore, the person in charge of answering these e-mails should be aware that these e-mails are coming and the moderator should ignore these messages.

In closing, a business that wants to use the social media systems must control the way their clients and contacts can reach them. There are two reasons this is important. The first reason this is important is that the business may be running a sales funnel test that requires the contact type to be controlled for tracking purposes. The other reason is that there are many people online (and not just in the social media systems) that will seek to attack a business through any means. This means that e-mail, phone, even showing up at the business address could be used to distract a business or employee from the important work that they need to focus on in that moment. These are all reasons that a person should control how a people can contact them and why those controlling those avenues are so important.

What You Should Remember When It Comes To Your Business Social Networking Profiles

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and the list goes on and on. We are now in the era of staying socially connected and socially abreast of the world around us via social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. We can literally reveal to the world any and everything that we want others to know or not know about us with the push of a button. What we look like, where we live, how many children we have, who we are married to, what we drive, where we shop, where we vacation - this is all on public display for the world to see at the push of a button.

So exactly just what should you be including in your profile and display pages anyway? For starters, it really depends on what exactly you are using social media sites for. Is it for business, family, or for pleasure? It may possibly be for all of the above. At any rate, you should always be very strategic in how you use social media no matter what you use it for!

Social Networking for Business

Assuming you are using social networking sites for business it is important to keep one thing in mind. Despite what you may think, most social networking websites do not have restrictions on who can view your personal profile and information. The bottom line is that where there is a will and or a need, there is definitely a way. Your information can be accessed no matter how private that you believe it to be because you ultimately have no right to the actual sites! Once you publish information on social media sites, it no longer belongs to "you." Always proceed with caution in what you say and do on social media sites.

What Not to Do on Your Business Profile Pages

Do not post pictures of yourself half naked or in compromising places or positions! Assuming that you are a business professional that is not in the adult entertainment industry you always want to be extremely tasteful in the pictures that you post. While it is great that your body looks good enough for a bikini and you love Vanilla Vodka, your customers, business partners and potential customers and business partners don't need or care to see your bikini body or Vodka bottle(typically)! A rule of thumb should be that if it doesn't relate to business and it is on your business page - DON'T POST IT! Do not get too personal! Leave the "drama" off of your business page. Often times, people will get into politics and it can become extremely personal, offensive, opinionated and controversial. Save the sports, reality TV and politics talk for your personal page. After all, it is business! Therefore, your potential customers and partners have their eyes on you and are "judging you." Leave your personal life on your personal page. There is a fine line to be drawn here. Yes, you want to have some personality and reveal who you are but a line must be drawn in the sand. Do not post updates and images on a regular basis regarding your family life and personal life. Unless you can make a connection to your business life in what it is that you are posting, leave that for your personal page!

Always be on purpose when posting to the social networking sites that you use for business. Keep in mind that people are "watching your every move" whether you realize it or not. What you do online, as well as offline, has a direct impact on who joins you and who conducts business with you. When it comes to your social networking business strategy, always ask yourself three questions:

1) What will my customers think?

2) What will my partners think?

3) What will my prospects think?

Keep it professional, informational and inspirational and you will have nothing to worry about. Lead by example and post on purpose. People will respect you for it and want to be associated with you, which will ultimately grow your business and your bank account in the end!

Where Social Networking for Business Is Going In The Future

Social networking or social media is heading towards a more business friendly environment. The bigger social media sites were generated with the individual in mind. The features of the current social media networks may not only be ineffective for businesses but also detrimental to developing strong business contacts. These social networks may cause businesses to lose money because they may be too open for businesses to use for everyday business.

A business networking system must be close ended. For a business social network to be effective, it must be like a real Rolodex. When a business meets another business for the first time, they do not want to show off their whole Rolodex on the first meeting. Unfortunately, this is how most of the bigger social networks have built their platform.

Most of the users can see each other in their "friends" and "followers" areas. This can cause some businesses to lose their competitive advantage based on the relationship they have with another one of their business associates. For example, a business may have spent months searching for a wholesale distributor of a certain product. This distributor may be delivering that product at an unbelievable discount that the business can use to generate a great amount of revenue. It would not make sense for a business to reveal who that distributor is to everyone they meet. However, this is exactly what happens in most social networking sites. The full contact, "friends," and "followers" list is revealed to anyone who becomes a friend or follower of a business.

Generally, any update that any person makes on the regular social media networking systems will push down the updates from any other user (this includes other business entities and potential consumers). This fact alone can mean that a business may miss an important piece of information from a vendor or even a client who wants to make a buying decision. Any information by any person can and will be pushed down by any update in the major social media networks and this is a massive problem for businesses. A business needs a clean social network where contacts cannot see each other unless designated by the business and the stream of communication can be controlled to the point where only pertinent information is seen by the business and not mixed with personal information from personal contacts.

A business owner will likely own more than one business. This means that having one social media or social network profile is not an option for most businesses. Every business needs to be treated as a separate business and have its own profile. This allows a business to avoid a phenomenon called "piercing of the corporate veil" where a business is legally associated to each other by not properly maintaining the borders between two or more businesses. This means more assets can be at stake when a company has legal troubles. Having separate accounts for social media can be very useful for this boundary between businesses and avoids future problems that have to do with litigation.

In the future, social networks will be created with business use in mind and personal use as an afterthought. This change will allow businesses to make better use of the social media systems and allow them to have different profiles and keep contacts from seeing each other on the systems. These businesses will be better prepared for developing contacts through the internet and create a global marketplace that is better suited for the needs of business owners everywhere.

Making Efficient Use of Your Social Media Campaign - A Debut Into Social Media Marketing

With over a billion friends on Facebook, millions of followers on Twitter and Google Plus, not every business is joining in the social media revolution. Some businesses had a slow entry into the World Wide Web almost a couple of decades ago, and now some are missing the opportunity to expand their geographic and demographic markets by not taking a plunge into social media. Taking the time to develop a strategy for how you want to use it and making it useful for your business is key. Finding where your competitors, clients and potential clients are is a start to see where your presence needs to be. It is not too late to enter into the social media world and not have to take too much of your time. Here are some helpful hints of where to find a place for your business and make it work for you.

LinkedIn - Seen as more of a professional site, LinkedIn is a first step in creating a social media presence. All that needs to be done is have a well written summary of your company's profile, listing your products services, years in business and a link to your company's website. Your customers and friends will "follow" your company if there are any updates. Creating your company LinkedIn page should take under 30 minutes with confirmation emails, and maintaining it on a monthly basis would take under an hour. Twitter - Using 140 characters to make a few updates a day will create a different kind of social media presence. Much like a mini-press release of announcements, Twitter is the chic way of finding out trends, creating a backlink to your website and offers a new way of seeing what the competition is doing. You can commit up to 30 minutes a day total time in the research for articles to tweet, retweet and linking any information you want to advertise. Avid tweeters can send up to 50 tweets a day, but beginners can commit to 3 or 4 tweets a day, tweeting at different times of the day. Facebook - With over a billion users, Facebook is one of the most accessible of all. Creating a page is easy, and gives users the opportunity to create Facebook ads to reach many users based on Facebook's own data. It is still a way to get a name known to a new market, and offers a way to feed both Twitter and Facebook updates simultaneously. Setting up, creating a Facebook page profile, and finding the right cover and profile pictures would be simple to upload and can take under 30 minutes. The hard part would be investing the time to finding "likes" among your customers. Create a plan of putting the Facebook logo on your printed media as well as your website and it it will help create a following of "likes." Google+- This is Google's way to have circle of friends, offer status updates and share documents. One advantage of having Google+ is that your company will be listed in Google searches. The amount of time to use Google+ depending on how much time you want to create the uploads, the status feeds and the sharing of documents. It would take minutes to set up a Google+ account with a gmail address and fill out the information questionnaire. Generating your list of circles could take some time to build, and could be up to 1 to 2 hours to begin the process if you have a large list of customers. Maintaining Google+ could take as much time as Facebook or Twitter would on a weekly basis Pinterest - This is the fastest growing of the social media sites. It offers a way to organize information visually of your products and services in a different format. Creating an account and setting up boards would take under 30 minutes to do. Maintaining pinnings of your company's interests, uploading pins and creating the videos or infographs that you want to use would take some time. For basic upkeep, it would be 2 hours a month.

For the basic set-ups of these services, it could take a couple of hours, but maintaining these accounts would be key. You can anticipate 3 to 6 hours a week added to your time if you want to self-manage your efforts in your social media presence. You can always delegate tasks of creating videos, infographs or articles to someone on your staff, who is savvy with internet marketing or to a social media virtual assistant to keep maintenance of your accounts.

Sunday, December 2, 2012

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