I’m pretty sure that if you’re a small to medium sized business owner, some guy off the street has either walked into your store or given you a call at some odd hour trying to sell you on the whole idea of Social Media Marketing. After doing this whole SEO (short for Search Engine Optimization) thing for about 2 years, I’m going to have to agree with these sales guys about how important Social Media Marketing can be to your business. But before we dive into the details about how to market your business, let’s take a look at what Social Media is.
If you’re in your teens, or even your 30s and 40s now, you’ve probably heard about these new fangled websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. Some of you may have even heard of sites like Digg.com or Yelp.com. Now how many of you have actually looked into how these websites work?
Honestly, I’ve been doing this for 2 years and I probably haven’t stopped for even 5 minutes to look into these sites, even though I’m using them all on a daily basis. Through the posts on this blog, I’m hoping to teach you a bit more about Social Media, especially Twitter and Facebook, which are 2 of the largest sites out there, and are extremely simple to use if you take the time to study them. Eventually, maybe we’ll get into the idea of blogging for businesses.
First, let’s take a look at Facebook. On the surface, it’s a site that allows you to connect with people, most of whom you probably already know. For me, it’s more of a way to see what’s going on in the lives of my friends that I haven’t seen in a while. For others, it could be a stalking tool to see what that cute girl you just met has been up to. But now it’s time to look at Facebook in a new light. Facebook can be a very powerful tool for business if managed correctly. Try putting yourself in the shoes of a rising singer/songwriter. You have absolutely no money, and you can’t make any money until you begin to build a fan base… but how can you do that if you don’t have the money for marketing? In walks this magical being named Facebook. Through Facebook, you can start to spread the word about your talents and specialties, and then look for people who like the type of music that you play. If those people that you found like your music and become a fan, then without you really having to do much, they begin to spread the word about you. Cost? Nothing but time.
In upcoming posts, I’ll walk you through setting up a “Fan Page” for your business, and about how to keep that fan base growing, as well as some ideas about how to entice people to continue to be your fans. We don’t want all that hard work going to waste and having your fans desert you.
But for now, let’s look at Twitter. It looks simple enough. A short blurb of 140 characters? How can that affect any business. Well, think of it as word of mouth advertising. You tell 2 people, and they each tell 2 people, and those guys each tell 2 more people … and so on… and so on. The next thing you know, hundreds of people have seen your message that took you all of 5 seconds to post. Now imagine how long it would have taken you to hand out business cards and introduce yourself to all those people. That’s the magic of the internet, my friends.
That concludes your introduction to the world of Social Media, but we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Stay tuned for more info about how to make the most out of Online Marketing. Subscribe to my blog and get updated when I put up a new post. And feel free to leave me comments with your thoughts and questions.
