Social media is one of the many tools that every business will find invaluable in helping them to increase public awareness of their company and their brand, with some of the main factors to measure being the speed of the company's growth, the number of people who see their social media sites, how many customers are generated via leads, and how much traffic the social media outlets drive to the company's website. Using social media is a great way to impact your business positively, and it is important that you use social media to generate a more positive image for your company.
It is important that you don't only focus on doing regular activities that will help to increase sales, but that you use your social media outlets at the same time. You will find that a huge number of people use sites like Twitter and Facebook, and you will find that you can use these websites to track the people who come in contact with your products. However, you should be doing other activities at the same time, such as using newsletters, signup forms, sharing your content, and finding alternative methods aside from social media to drive potential customers to your website.
Your content needs to be relevant in order for people to visit your site, and it should be engaging and interesting as well. You need to provide your readers with information that will benefit them, will interest them, and will provide them with solutions to their problems. You need to monitor the traffic you are getting to see what it is that is interesting people visiting your site, as that will help you to know how to improve the content you are posting. You can also get visitors to share their thoughts and comments with you, or use interactions such as "Likes", all for the purpose of finding out what it is that is interesting new customers.
It is essential that you spend time researching what people are saying about your company, such as in online reviews. You need to know who is saying what, and where people are talking about it the most. This way you will be able to join conversations and answer people's questions or solve problems, all in the intent to improve your customer relations. You can help mitigate problems just by knowing what is being said by people about your service.
Most importantly, social media will help you to keep track of the places from which your product is receiving the most attention, as well as the reasons for the attention. You will learn whether the feedback is negative or positive, and you can find which the most negative areas are so you can work on improving them. It is essential to use social media to help you monitor your impact on the public, as that will be one of the most effective marketing strategies. You will be able to find what areas of your business need work, and thus you can improve those areas in order to improve the public's perception of you.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6993003
Friday, 13 April 2012
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
How Should Social Media Impact Your Social Marketing Strategies?
Due to what has been called a hunger for connectivity, over half of the population of the United States is on Facebook: 152.9 million as of February 2012. Many older Americans tell their friends that they joined Facebook so that they can see what their adult children are up to. Since their children and grandchildren seldom call them, they join Facebook to stay in touch.
For the younger generations, the immediacy of connectivity offered by Facebook and Twitter has become essential. Social networking, a term coined by Mark Zuckerberg when he founded Facebook, was initially predicted to be just another passing phase but has become a staple in the seemingly bottomless need for instant information of this twenty-first century. Launched in 2004, active users of Facebook grew from an initial million to over 750 million in 2011.
Coupling these data with the fact that one out of three purchases are bought on- line, it should be clear that current marketing strategies should change in order to conform. But how?
Largely in the experimental stages of new methods of advertising, a few large companies like Starbucks, Walmart and the Palms, an upscale casino in Las Vegas, have made what they consider decent in- roads into the new culture of social network users. Taking advantage of those users who are "influencers" in their network, the companies have solicited these individuals to post their product and to "like" them in exchange for coupons which can be redeemed for cash or for product. These influencers are deemed as such by their followers due to the power of their personality, opinions and or expertise.
Those of us with a product we know is excellent can easily experiment with some of these same methods. For example, we can locate loyal customers who use Twitter and then offer them discounts for each ten tweets about our product to their followers. Similar methods can be offered to those who like us on Facebook; really these are just variations on the testimonials network marketers have used for years.
The emergence of social media has not changed the fundamental axiom of marketing: "WIIFM" or what's in it for me? If anything, the principle is magnified through 153 million social media active users with friends numbering between one and three hundred. If they like us and our products, be assured that they will talk about it.
The tried and true essentials of marketing remain: a trusted, consistently high quality product with excellent customer service. These are even more essential now than in prior years due to the number of sites to receive purchasing advice. Where only five years ago, Consumer Reports was the sole source of receiving honest feedback on a fairly limited range of products, contemporary curious potential buyers can now check out customer satisfaction with almost any product at on-line at sites like Google, Yelp, and Trusted Opinion.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6970849
For the younger generations, the immediacy of connectivity offered by Facebook and Twitter has become essential. Social networking, a term coined by Mark Zuckerberg when he founded Facebook, was initially predicted to be just another passing phase but has become a staple in the seemingly bottomless need for instant information of this twenty-first century. Launched in 2004, active users of Facebook grew from an initial million to over 750 million in 2011.
Coupling these data with the fact that one out of three purchases are bought on- line, it should be clear that current marketing strategies should change in order to conform. But how?
Largely in the experimental stages of new methods of advertising, a few large companies like Starbucks, Walmart and the Palms, an upscale casino in Las Vegas, have made what they consider decent in- roads into the new culture of social network users. Taking advantage of those users who are "influencers" in their network, the companies have solicited these individuals to post their product and to "like" them in exchange for coupons which can be redeemed for cash or for product. These influencers are deemed as such by their followers due to the power of their personality, opinions and or expertise.
Those of us with a product we know is excellent can easily experiment with some of these same methods. For example, we can locate loyal customers who use Twitter and then offer them discounts for each ten tweets about our product to their followers. Similar methods can be offered to those who like us on Facebook; really these are just variations on the testimonials network marketers have used for years.
The emergence of social media has not changed the fundamental axiom of marketing: "WIIFM" or what's in it for me? If anything, the principle is magnified through 153 million social media active users with friends numbering between one and three hundred. If they like us and our products, be assured that they will talk about it.
The tried and true essentials of marketing remain: a trusted, consistently high quality product with excellent customer service. These are even more essential now than in prior years due to the number of sites to receive purchasing advice. Where only five years ago, Consumer Reports was the sole source of receiving honest feedback on a fairly limited range of products, contemporary curious potential buyers can now check out customer satisfaction with almost any product at on-line at sites like Google, Yelp, and Trusted Opinion.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6970849
Monday, 2 April 2012
Facebook Is Building a Search Engine?
Is Facebook building a Google rival — one that would use your location and your friends’ tastes?
A team of more than 20 Facebook engineers — led by a former Google programmer — is at work on a vastly improved search engine within the site, according a Businessweek report.
The idea, according to two sources, is to take better advantage of the heaps of content Facebook users create on — and off — the site every day. With people sharing status updates and supporting brand pages on the network, as well as using Facebook’s “Like” button to mark articles and videos from external sites, there is certainly a lot to take advantage of.
Mashable contacted Facebook for more information and got this response from a company spokesperson: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation around products.”
Google has boosted its presence in the social space recently, opening the Google+ network last fall and a “Search, Plus Your World” feature to tepid response earlier this year. So it’s interesting to see Facebook potentially make a stronger move into the search world.
A large-scale shift to a “semantic web,” where online data is is able to be delivered in more nuanced and complex ways, is gaining momentum among tech futurists. Wikipedia recently announced a project called Wikidata that aims to make its content smarter by cross-updating among Wikipedia pages when they are edited. A more robust Facebook search functionality would be another step toward that semantic web.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has consistently downplayed the level of direct competition between Facebook and Google. “I don’t think that this is going to be the type of situation when one company wins all this stuff,” he told Charlie Rose of PBS last fall.
If the Businessweek report is true, however, it will add yet another area of heightened competitive overlap between the two Silicon Valley giants.
A team of more than 20 Facebook engineers — led by a former Google programmer — is at work on a vastly improved search engine within the site, according a Businessweek report.
The idea, according to two sources, is to take better advantage of the heaps of content Facebook users create on — and off — the site every day. With people sharing status updates and supporting brand pages on the network, as well as using Facebook’s “Like” button to mark articles and videos from external sites, there is certainly a lot to take advantage of.
Mashable contacted Facebook for more information and got this response from a company spokesperson: “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation around products.”
Google has boosted its presence in the social space recently, opening the Google+ network last fall and a “Search, Plus Your World” feature to tepid response earlier this year. So it’s interesting to see Facebook potentially make a stronger move into the search world.
A large-scale shift to a “semantic web,” where online data is is able to be delivered in more nuanced and complex ways, is gaining momentum among tech futurists. Wikipedia recently announced a project called Wikidata that aims to make its content smarter by cross-updating among Wikipedia pages when they are edited. A more robust Facebook search functionality would be another step toward that semantic web.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has consistently downplayed the level of direct competition between Facebook and Google. “I don’t think that this is going to be the type of situation when one company wins all this stuff,” he told Charlie Rose of PBS last fall.
If the Businessweek report is true, however, it will add yet another area of heightened competitive overlap between the two Silicon Valley giants.
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