Do you want to learn how to use social media networking appropriately and have a successful business? Allow me to show you how. Let me define these three words. Social= allowing people to meet and interact with others in a friendly way. Media= the various means of mass communication considered as a whole, including television, radio, magazines, and newspapers, together with the people involved in their production. Networking= the process or practice of building up or maintaining informal relationships, especially with people whose friendship could bring advantages such as job or business opportunities. This defines the three words, but it still does not tell you how to use the social media to your advantage.
Basics of Social Media
Now people want and expect businesses to have a social media presence as well. This could be places like Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. There was a time when businesses did not have a presence online and when they did, it was just a website. The idea is to give people a place to find out what is happening and to provide feedback.
A social media site should include:
1. Promotional Information
2. Exclusive deals, coupons or offers
3. Polls/Surveys of potential products
4. New product descriptions
Social Media Networking is so much more than that and not complicated. Social media allows you to develop relationships based on your commonalities with others. You can use social media networking to meet individuals which possibly you can later meet offline in venues such as meet-up groups. You want to meet and develop interaction with people prior to slamming them with your product, service, or business. Eventually after you have built a trustworthy relationship it can develop into customers, clients or business partners. You can share interests such as fitness, cosmetics, etc.
Steps on setting up your social network.
1. Set up a profile on twitter. Go to the Twitter home page and select “New User”. Twitter is currently the fastest growing community on the internet. Complete the relevant information and verify your account. The next step is to search twitter for users interested in similar ideas as your business. There are a number of options you can target your social media marketing prospects, from your contacts lists to keyword searches. Take your time and add as many new contacts as time permits.
2. Add buttons to your website that will enable you to link from your website to each of these to your Social networking profiles. there are widgets and banners available at each of the Social Network Marketing sites that you can simply cut and paste into your website to Leverage the Power of this Medium
3. Visit LinkedIn and make a new profile. Linked in often gets users searching for individuals/business for work so it is key to make sure that you completely fill out the details required for a complete profile. This will leverage your social media marketing opportunity and ensure your LinkedIn prospects know what you are about.
4. Join StumbleUpon and submit pages from your website. This is one of the largest source of traffic early in your websites development and it is important that you maximise the power this resource has to offer to leverage social media marketing.
5. Set up a business page on Facebook. This is relatively simple to achieve. Sign up to Facebook and set-up a personal page. You would then set up your social media marketing page by establishing either a group or a page. My personal recommendation is to set up your social media marketing plan as a page. Complete as much information in the business information tabs as possible and remember to link back to your main website.
6. Join Digg and begin to submit the pages of your website to the Digg Community.
Did you in fact benefit from it? Well, one may say no, but, there is another way to look at this. You now have two trusted friends which may not be so reluctant to listening to what you have to say or sell. They had a problem you provided a solution. You are now a hero and you have two new friends who may at some point pay it forward. Bringing these two individuals together who may not have otherwise met may work to your advantage in the long run.
Becoming an avid student of social media networking will put you heads above all of your counterparts. And I think that is where you want to be. Stop exercising the used car salesmen approach. This is a modern world with incredible new approaches and technology is one of them. Is it now becoming clear that you do not have to push the product in order to sell it? You have to provide solutions for individuals the sale will come naturally. Use this format carefully and wisely and your business will soar.