Twitter is one of today’s biggest and most important, as well as most talked about, social networks. But how do we use it in business? That one escapes many people who expect social media to provide instant access to customers and an immediate flow of orders. The fact is, Twitter is a town square, or water cooler experience. You go there to talk, listen, share and learn. Social media is where connections are made. The business that derives from those connections takes time, and typically goes to the people who’ve learned how to communicate in the medium. That’s why many are having a hard time figuring out how to actually use Twitter in a way that helps them.
The advice for marketers is simple. Make sure you’re ready for a long Twitter tenure (that is, don’t sign up today and complain about not many followers tomorrow). Participate in specific discussions and with target groups by using hashtags and following lists. Reply back to people who you find interesting and compelling. Twitter is made for talking, but everyone likes to hear something back. Pay very close attention to trending topics and engage the moment you see something at all relevant to your brand.
There’s a lot to learn about using Twitter. There’s also a sense that if you’re not using social media in some capacity you may soon be somewhat left behind. Check out the following article for more information, and then think about what you need to do to ramp up your social strategy.
Read full article: Why @garyst3in Is My New Online Home
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The social media juggernaut continues its advance throughout the Web. Like it or not, you’ll need to be part of it. For some insights check out “21 Social Media Predictions and Trends for 2011″ http://bit.ly/h735G2, and then get to work. Seriously.
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Social media continues to grow in use, usefulness and buzz. But the real importance of social media is that it’s become a part of everyday communications for the majority of people. As we’ve been saying, businesses need to be where their customers are.
Even more noteworthy is a new bit of information: social media is now being used regularly by over 50% of people over age 50. This attests to the adoption of social media by the mainstream. As mainstream tools, business should re-evaluate their strategies and adapt their efforts accordingly. Adapting quickly — that’s how business online works.
For more information see the full article:
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/stats/1731723/users-over-double-social-networking-use-year
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Facebook’s recent privacy policy woes stem from a fundamental flaw in understanding their own platform. So an excellent post by blogger Adam Fields appears to point out. Though phenomenally popular, FB is in dire need of a business model. Their hope, like Google’s, is to leverage the huge amount of data they accumulate from their 400MM+ users to make money selling advertising. However, these users are trusting FB to keep their data private — or at least only be used in ways they approve. Additionally, users want control over the data they provide, and they want those controls to be easy to use and stable, in the sense that the privacy policy doesn’t change every few months.
The fact that FB wants to make users’ data more publicly available, and therefore useful to advertisers, forms the basis of the conflict they’ve created with their users. The crux is that FB data is social in nature as opposed to Google’s which is public. Public data is more useful when more people know about it. Social data, however, has inherently much less reach because it’s purpose is not widespread consumption, but the limited social circle for which it’s published.
From Fields’ post: “social sharing isn’t the same as public sharing. When I write something in a public forum, I want as many people as possible to read it. In that kind of forum, Google can make more money if more people see it, as can Facebook (which is why Facebook is trying to turn their entire platform into a more public one). This is at odds with what the users want for social, which is controlled sharing among a very small group. There is certainly an aspect of making new friends and extending one’s social circle outwards, but the object here is generally to share only inside that circle, and people tend to resist being forced or coerced by the platform to share more widely.”
Hijacking user data appears to be a bad strategy for FB, unless it can persuade users to give up their current ideas about privacy. And just as FB can never be Google, Google will find it difficult to become a social platform like FB because the nature of the data at the heart of each is just different.
Read full article: http://bit.ly/bOnk5t
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These days, everyone wants to know how to get on the social media bandwagon. And for good reason; social sites are becoming the town squares, marketplaces and gathering points of the 21st century. For businesses, you’ll want to be where your customers are.
A good place to start is LinkedIn. Below is a nice rubric for using LinkedIn to promote and develop business. Try some of these techniques yourself and see if you can begin to make LinkedIn payoff for you.
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“When I first blogged about ten ways to use LinkedIn, the site had 8.5 million total users worldwide. I’m told that now there are over twelve million small-business people on LinkedIn …”
via Ten Ways for Small Businesses to Use LinkedIn
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Interesting: according to this CNNMoney report, upwards of 73% of Twitter users have posted less than 10 times! It’s hard to include this site in the social phenomenon when the majority of its 50MM users are not contributing.
But there is tremendous interest in following on Twitter, and speculation is that the site is evolving into more of a news feed than a social platform. Of course, if everyone you’re interested in hearing from is posting on Twitter that’s reason enough to have an account. But does this mean that the site will soon become just another broadcast medium for the media elite?
Full article: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/10/technology/twitter_users_active/index.htm
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In the current economy, SEO (search engine optimization) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and the like) are all the rage. Justifiably so. But for the most part, people are interested for the wrong reasons, ie: many tend to think it’s a free or cheap way to making big money on the Internet. Yes, it’s far cheaper than most traditional marketing methods, but it’s far from free! In fact, a solid commitment of time and financial resources is required for success in these venues, just as it is in any other worthwhile arena.
Still, there are many things that a website owner can do to improve their search rankings — if not become “number one on Google,” as the spam pitches promise. And some of the easiest to implement can also begin providing marked results. That’s the point of this article from ClickZ.com, which shares three simple but effective SEO tips that you can put to use right away.
1: Use Your Key Phrase in Your Title
2: Use the Target Key Phrase in the Body Copy
3: Cross Link Your Pages Using the Target Key Phrases
Sound interesting? Check out the entire article for details, try the techniques and then see how your site does in Google over the next several weeks.
Full article: http://www.clickz.com/3636405
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