Social Media. Simplified.
Social media is all about networking.
Networking is all about building relationships.
Relationships drive business opportunities.
Social media brings people together in an interactive space, without the constraints of time and space, to receive or provide advice and to share contacts and relevant industry information.
1. Social Networks
Social Networks help individuals and businesses to connect with one another and develop relationships. As these networks continue to grow and expand, many focus specifically on businesses and their needs, including niche markets.
An online social network comprised of 100 million plus users — can be used as a B2B and B2C networking and marketing platform through “fan” pages that allow moderated interaction between the brand and users/fans of the brand. Facebook pages are SEO-friendly and you can post urls, blogs, photos, videos and enter into discussions. To keep users engaged, content should be dynamic and frequently updated.
Strictly a business networking tool designed to put you in touch with other like-minded professionals through connections and group interaction. More than 300,000 groups enable professionals to discuss common interests and collaborate with each other – a great way to meet prospective clients and colleagues. The LinkedIn Answers feature enables businesses to demonstrate expertise in a particular area.
MySpace
Often regarded strictly as a personal site, MySpace does have a networking component that helps you to locate and “friend” businesses that may benefit from knowing about your products or services.
Ecademy
Connects business people to one another through its online network, blogs and message-board chats. Used to share knowledge, build networks and grow your business.
2. Video
Video-sharing websites provide you with the opportunity to upload and share videos. Users can watch videos, leave comments, share videos and even embed them on their own websites and blogs. Companies can create video content that promotes their brands and offerings and upload them to video-sharing websites.
YouTube
Largest online video community where you can post and share videos about your products and services, offer expert advice, document success stories (case studies) and showcase your brand and your experience as an industry thought leader to reach your target audience and generate leads. Maximum video length is 10 minutes.
MetaCafe
Simple to use, no duplicate videos, and a review panel keeps this video site clean and orderly. A well-organized site that categorizes
videos, recommends those that are most popular, and houses a lively community of users that comment on and rate videos.
Google Video
This site has more searchable categories, including Business, Animation, Documentary, Educational, News, Music and Comedy, than any other video share site. Many users find the content to be more refined, with more informational videos. No time limit on video length.
3. Location/Reviews
Location review sites allow users to rate and review local businesses in major areas throughout the country. People use these sites to find restaurants, entertainment and, yes, businesses. Businesses with a solid presence on local review sites and location-based social networks get a boost when users search for what they have to offer. You can also provide contact information and links to your website.
Yelp
Each business listing result contains details such as business address, hours, accessibility, and parking. Site visitors can review businesses and the business owner has direct access to update their listing information.
MerchantCircle
Gives local businesses online exposure through a local business social network where business owners can upload pictures, create blogs, create coupons and newsletters, and connect with other merchants, free of charge.
Insider Pages
Another business-listing site that allows customers/clients to search by type/location of business. Helps to improve business SEO ranking through customer/client reviews of your business.
4. Social Bookmarks
Social Bookmarks increase SEO and help others who use the Internet to find your website, original content and thought leadership articles. Many of these types of communities encourage users to submit news stories, articles and media (videos/pictures) to share with other users and the general public. Articles are sometimes given added visibility depending on factors such as the number of user votes allocated to a particular item.
Delicious
A social bookmarking service that lets you organize, tag, save, manage and share Web pages all in one place. With emphasis on the power of the community, Delicious greatly improves the way in which people discover, remember and share on the Internet.
Digg
A social news website where people discover and share content from anywhere on the Internet, by submitting links and stories, and voting and commenting on submitted links and stories.
StumbleUpon
Think of it as an online “channel surfing” tool. StumbleUpon is known for its ability to send lots of traffic to a specific webpage or website that’s been “stumbled.” This is extremely beneficial when you’ve written a “thought leader” piece or blog or have a website that offers useful content that you want others to see as they “stumble” through their selected areas of interest.
Upload stories and articles on Reddit to drive traffic to your site or blog. When you submit frequently, you’ll increase your number of followers and your presence on this site.
5. Images
Image sharing is a valuable social media tool for sharing information and posting images (photos, artwork, etc.) on image-sharing websites where they can be viewed, tagged, categorized, and even used by others on the same site.
Photobucket
Probably the most popular photo-sharing site – it has easy-to-use features, offers the ability to share photos with other social networking sites (Facebook, Blogger), and gives users control over who sees their photos.
Flickr
Although you can’t blatantly market your business on Flickr, there are some very successful ways to drive traffic to your website through information you post on your profile, such as your user name, etc. Tags attached to photos help others to find your pictures and help you to find pictures you want to see.
Picasa
A member of the Google family, this site allows unlimited photo uploads and gives you the ability to transfer photos to other sites and blogs. It’s compatible with TiVo so you can view photos on your television.
Webshots
Has one of the largest photo libraries on the Web and you can monitor who views and downloads your photos. You can also grow your online community by adding contacts to your address book and leaving messages in community albums.
6. Blog
As dynamic marketing tools, blogs increase chances that your business can be found through organic search – and search is one of the number one reasons why people start up their computers! People look online for answers – a blog can offer them solutions in your area of expertise.
A microblog of 140 characters or less that helps you establish expertise (think thought leader!) and build awareness about you and your company. Using Twitter helps you to increase your network and drives people to your website when you link articles on your website to your microblog.
WordPress
WordPress is the number one business blogging platform. A 5-minute installation, customizable platform, easy-to-use interface and the availability of plug-ins and themes make this an attractive blogging platform. But its biggest feature – it’s free!
Blogger
Blogger is a free blogging service from Google. With just a few simple steps, you can post text, video and photos to your blog. Although it doesn’t offer as much in terms of customization as other platforms, that is why so many users like it – it’s easy to use.
Technorati
A tool businesses use to increase readership of their blogs through a network of blogs and writers in categories like Business, Entertainment and Technology.
7. Document/Content Sharing
Document sharing sites permit you to upload documents – text documents, presentations and PDF files, for example – for other users to view, comment on or use. You can also link documents to other social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook or your blog. Some of these sites let you add audio to turn a presentation into a webinar. These sites also provide terrific research materials, such as business forms, case studies, white papers and books.
SlideShare
The business benefits of using
SlideShare to upload content include driving users to your website, establishing yourself as a thought leader, creating awareness of your brand, networking with others in your industry, and identifying new leads/sales opportunities. You can integrate links to content using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
DocStoc
DocStoc, the premier online community for finding and sharing professional documents, also functions as a networking site. Users can upload, search, find, preview, download and share all types of business documents, such as forms and templates, in categories that include legal, business, financial, technology, educational, and creative. Documents are available immediately and you can embed your website into the content. Best of all – the site is free.
Scribd
Scribd is the world’s largest social publishing and reading website with everything from bestsellers to research and white papers to presentations. Users can upload, search.
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