SM Internet

Make Social Media Sharing Simple

If you have a blog or website should provide a simple means of sharing your content. This means adding social media sharing buttons and plug-ins to all of your web properties, guaranteeing it is simple and quick for your readers to spread the word when they find a post of benefit or interest.

Fill Out Your Profiles Completely

This may seem like common sense. However, many online business owners and entrepreneurs have incomplete social media profiles. Wherever you have the chance, tell people about yourself and your business, providing plenty of links back to your website or blog. Look in the profile or other setting section of the social site to go into more detail of who, what, when, where, etc. People do look at it if they are interested. Take your business seriously.

Run a Contest or Giveaway

KingSumo is one of many companies that will help you create and manage a successful giveaway or contest on social media websites. This single traffic driving strategy can result in significantly higher numbers of visitors to your site. Polls can sometimes help in a similar fashion.

Be Creative And Share Again The Same Message/Article/Other Content!

Just because you share a blog post or new piece of content on Facebook doesn’t mean you can’t share it again later. Your prospects and followers on social media are not always logged in at the same time. This means that your content should be shared on all of the social media websites multiple times. Do it in such a way that it does not look exactly the same on your social media timeline. You can use a different picture, text only, and be sure to add other business related posts in between your duplicate posts. I have visited pages where the same post shows up 5 times in a row and it does not look good. Tends to make me think the poster is not creative and makes me not to want to do business with them.

You can expand your number of business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals. While social media in business has been around for a very long time, the potential of how to use social media in the Internet to promote such connections is only now being fully recognized and exploited. Many web-based groups established for that purpose.

Social Networking is an online experience which offers discussion groups, chat rooms, and news groups. This a great place where individuals share common space and common interests to share or promote ideas, experiences, and insights. People can talk and connect with others, as well as to make new friends or just have someone to talk with.

Facebook and Twitter provide two different social media marketing strategies. Facebook is more of a personal networking site as it promotes “reconnecting” with old high school, college, and former corporate friends and associates. You can also use Facebook to expand your networks to include business interests as well. Blogs are a form of social networking and are often linked through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) on Facebook pages so those within one’s personal network can view the blogposts on the home page of the Facebook user.

Twitter is not as personal as Facebook in my opinion. Twitter is a microblogging site that limits all single posts to a limit of 140 characters. Twitter allow users to build large networks of followers in a short period of time.

Following others and being followed is what makes Twitter work. You can just start following people or you can use Twitter’s Search to seek Tweets that with similar interests or ones who have specific interests or expertise you wish to get involved in.

The concept of sharing is vital to successful social media Internet marketing. The idea is that you present visitors with something that is so informative or amusing or useful that the person wants to pass the info along to someone else. If you tell two people, and they each tell two people, there are only 10 levels required to reach a thousand people, and from there the numbers start to get big pretty quickly. And people want to share. They share their favorite videos, their favorite pictures, they talk about which products work the best, and ask another for advice about new furniture. Your goal is to be a part of that conversation.

A few well placed social media Internet marketing campaigns can have a notable impact on site traffic. This is especially true with the use of video banners, and amusingly eye-catching link images. If you make someone laugh, they will want to pass on the joke to someone else, because laughter is contagious. With video, you have direct access to a viewer’s emotions, and that can be a valuable opportunity.

Social media Internet marketing depends on frequent participation in message forums, on blog sites, and in the various social network sites. Having a listing in LinkedIn is not helping your bottom line unless you are actively participating on the site so people know you are there. In fact, the whole point of social media Internet marketing is to make sure people know who you are, and what you have to offer. Social media simply allows you a broader range of options in how to reach the people you want to be in contact with.

Facilities are available for everyone to express themselves through Social Media, with either their own personal website, or a business promoting services and products. The main means of communication are Blog, Podcast or Video. An individual site can be controlled to only allow access to close friends or alternatively broadcast worldwide. A Blog is a continuous update, a podcast is a voice message and video speaks for itself. All three can be uploaded by following easy basic steps.

Social Media connects people as friends and discreetly creates familiarity, building new relationships, that also builds trust. On joining as a member of the site, one is encouraged to make up a profile of oneself, with a picture, education, current and past employment, age group etc. Connection with suggested friends can be accepted or declined. Gradually as the library of friends grows, suggestions of friends with similar interests are put forward which expands the network. People are interested in hearing about what their friends are doing and what they like or dislike. Holiday photos, sporting achievements or interests can all be uploaded for friends to share.

It has always been recognised in business, “The best form of advertising is word of mouth” Imagine, that statement and the connection to a listing of friends, at the touch of a button, to good or bad customer service for instance! The majority of people trust recommendations from friends, far more than an advertisement in a newspaper.

If you are an individual looking to earn money online and work from home, or a business that needs to generate more customers, it is vital that you embrace the Social Media phenomenon. People do not want to be sold to, they want to be treated as human beings, and to do that you must be credible and build relationships, that increases referrals and builds trust. People buy from people they like and trust.

The steps, to successful Social Media Marketing.

1. Connect with interested people
2. Offer useful information, and good content.
3. Keep an updated record of their contact details
4. Stay in touch, to keep them updated.

Voting and User’s Review Feedback on the First Page of Google.User’s review feedback has a vital effect of making the videos ranked because it can act as an assessor. Therefore if you create videos, you’ll get feedback naturally, that can improve your website ranking. Today, more and more websites are benefiting from comments to persuade their visitors to write their feedback, connect, and establish a relationship with them.

The Effect of Social Bookmarking in SERPs.People can save their new websites immediately before crawlers or bots can discover them, making it possible to index websites faster. Moreover, every page of a website that are bookmarked are generally included in these Web 2.0 properties, which means that search engines can index website more quickly by keeping track of what’s occurring on these bookmarking sites.

These are only some of the factors created by its influence on search engine results positioning. Though most of these concepts may not actively be put into practice into search engine algorithms, all evidence indicate the point that search engines are going to use social media metrics to produce search engine listings that are more relevant to the user’s search.

Social media includes almost all types of content that can be created online. It doesn’t matter whether the content that you’re creating is text based, graphic (images), video content, or audio content (like podcasts.) What is important is that you’re creating high quality content, and that you’re releasing it regularly to social media sites. This is a VERY important strategy, and it is the first step in your social media lead gathering.

So, what type of media do you need to create in order to bring leads into your business? There are a few things that work as good types of social media and a few that don’t. The kinds that do work are materials that are funny, informative, or controversial. What doesn’t work in almost every case is anything which is simply promotional, or a hard sale piece of advertising.

When you create something that is funny or controversial, it is going to stick with those who view the media. These types of media can be among the best, because people are more likely to recommend this type of media, or to try and share it with their friends. That is the best possible scenario with social media. You want something to spread among the internet, such as when people share something on Facebook or recommend a YouTube video to their friends. This is how lead generation online works, and funny and controversial materials are often a good starting point for getting social media to spread.

Of course, once people become exposed to your media, they’re in a way a lead, but a rather tenuous one. From there, it’s up to you to nurture that lead and grow it until the person becomes a customer of your company. Getting someone to become a customer is all about making them feel comfortable with and trusting your company, and the best way to do that is through conversation.

Social media is all about sharing and discussion. If you post a great piece of media, there is a very good chance that you’re going to get people commenting on it. These are your leads, and you need to encourage them to become more. This is where many people fall apart on their social media strategies. They don’t realize that replying to the comments on media can be as important as the creation of the media itself.

In no more than a few years, social media changed from a hobby into almost a need to be connected - all the time, everywhere. And this very need is giving companies a hard time: LoveMint.com, a partner of Wall Street Journal, for instance, states that social media can lead of a loss of productivity of around 1.5% in a company, “the difference between keeping a company open or closed if the budget is low”.

The risks, though, are not limited to material damage: they can go as far as damaging internal relationships as well.People, as previously stated, are socializing beings, and unfortunately conflicts may occur from this kind of socialization. Msnbc.msn.com, for instance, states that an employee was fired after publishing derisive comments about her boss. The fact led to a suit, possible brand exposure, and possible loss of money - every company’s nightmare coming true.

If social media presents serious threats to businesses, why should it be allowed? First, let’s face it: social media is here to stay: not only social media represents 22% of all time spent online, states MediaWire, but according to e-commerce guide.com, but 5 out of 10 social media tools are being adopted by “more than 50% of brands and retailers”, states the news portal. This means that, although there are risks, any company could seriously benefit from social media. Therefore, here’s a list with a few tips on how to decrease profit loss:

How to Prevent Internet Abuse

1. Manage the time your employees spend online: have you ever considered liberating the internet only during break time and filtering certain sites? While people tend to frown upon this, they will still be able to browse the internet (which will keep them happy)while still minimizing productivity losses.
2. Allow access to some sites only to certain groups: if your company does decide that accessing sites such as Facebook outside lunch break is important, consider restricting this privilege only to those who are prepared to handle this kind of communication properly, as the PR staff of your company.
3. Track who is misusing your internet connection: you can use a proxy to identify abusers and modify your policies so your employees will sign a contract stating that their online activity may be monitored. Again, this will not turn you into Mr. Nice Guy, but you might consider this to be better than employing per-site restrictions.
4. Micromanage sites your employees visit: simply using a huge firewall to block many sites isn’t very effective. What if your company decided that Facebook is harmful, but Twitter is essential to spreading your business around? Never block any site “just because”: you might be losing a valuable tool that would help you grow otherwise.
5. Make productivity expectations clear: after all, it’s not only the internet that’s at fault in productivity loss. Reading a magazine, watching TV, listening to an mp3 player instead of working; these are time wasters, too. That way, you’ll increase productivity overall, and not just recover lost productivity from online time wasters.

This time around I added a few people I knew from work and my friends list grew modestly, then I joined a few networks, and it grew a little more. Over time a few vendors found me, then a few customers. It looked like anything else you get out what you put into it unless you had a really hot picture of yourself. Amazingly enough even on the internet a guy in blue polo isn’t considered excessively hot even if he leaves his pocket protector at home.

Being reclusive I did my best to ignore the application invites. Things like join my mob, send me a drink and other nonsense seemed like a frivolous waste of time at this point in life. Then it happened a few college friends added me. Then a few more. Sometimes it felt great to hear from them yet other times it was a why in the world do I care what they are doing now moments. Bus still I accepted their requests no reason to be rude. A few Ex girlfriends came by to say hi. I’m older, wiser, more worldly so why would I care. It’s harmless right?

Besides time has been kind to me, I have a pretty great life. And that’s when it hit me do I really want the girl I liked in kindergarten to know what my customers are saying and more importantly do I want my business associates, customers, and co workers to know anything about my past based on comments from people who knew me when I was young, dumb, and awkward.

There’s not much that I hide from but the thought of me in a hideous suit my mother made me wear for school pictures as 12 year old might be one of them, there was the one wild weekend at college when I looked like John Belushi on a bender that was not indicative of my studious book worm nature, or worse yet me and my assortment of other dweeb friends playing Dungeons and Dragons on a perfectly lovely Friday night in 1985. Yes I played D&D and I looked exactly like the stereo typical guy who played D&D did. So my worlds collided but just a little at a time. Is Facebook the root of all evil? Time will tell. Will our culture become ubiquitous, open and tolerant of the teenage geek turned married professional? The ugly duckling turned into the proverbial swan, maybe but it’s unlikely. Most of all do I want to prove to the guy who beat me up in the 5th grade that his inclinations about me were indisputably correct three decades later and that I am in fact a geek.

NO! People still tell me every day that social media is going to change the world. That business and life are bound to become inexplicably linked. To which I say thanks but no thanks. The business hasn’t come rolling in. Social Media might be a great way to go if you’re hawking get rich quick schemes or connecting with already established customers but at the moment I’m not finding wild and new exotic markets and customers to sell to and in turn they are not finding me either. With all the great things the internet has brought into my life social media just isn’t one of them. So call me old fashioned but I’m just happy I can order books on Amazon at a discount, get free shipping, and not pay sales tax…for now.

Blogs and social networking sites have indeed attained a status of being very effective internet marketing strategies through which people could attract a lot of traffic to their website or enhance their prominence on the web. When free blogs are a part of benefit that a member of a social website gets, one can have best of both the worlds.

Blogs were in fact a part and parcel of social media or rather pioneered the so vastly used social media even before social websites came into being. But with changing trends and time, the number of free blogs has seen an upsurge and one could identify the best blog sites with the help of an internet search. Now, blogging and social networking keep the internet mongers on the edge of their seats with a lot of interaction between the members and the bloggers. People now show a lot of interest to be a part of the social media and the social websites and through these have their own blogs and educate the followers on the idea desired.

The social websites too, give a great opportunity to its members to create socially enabled websites which are accompanied with all the powerful and latest features like blogs, videos, forums, member management and shopping cart just to name a few. Irrespective of whether blogging happened first or social networking site happened first, when both are put together the effect seems to be paramount.

Social Media Marketing

But quite apart from putting paid ads the social networking sites themselves ushered in a new dimension in online or internet advertising. Its power lies in the value of word-of-mouth advertising which carries the highest credibility among consumers, especially when circulated among friends, relatives and family.

Social media takes word-of-mouth content to a larger crowd that goes beyond this small circle of friends. It just takes one posting in Facebook from a consumer who has been delighted by a product or service for the posted content to spread out to dozens or hundreds of online readers within his or her circle of friends in the social network. Now, just imagine if each of those receiving the content does the same thing. Just clicking the “Like” button on Facebook content can do this and advertisers can easily get the reach they need that would otherwise be expensive to achieve in traditional advertising. Advertisers don’t even need to spend ad dollars. The consumers themselves do the talking, or in advertising parlance, make product endorsements.

The world of advertising has indeed found a gold mine in the Internet. You now have such buzzwords as internet advertising, online adverting and social media advertising. The old model where marketers place ads in print media hoping to catch the attention of broadsheet and tabloid readers, or intrude into watching television and listening to the radio with 30-seconder airtime slots, has been eroded with a new and promising model where the target consumer has active participation in getting the word out about a product or service to people who are surfing cyberspace.

Rishad Tobaccowala of Publicis, one of the world’s largest advertising companies, likened traditional advertisers as “dropping conventional bombs in villages” where some collateral damage is expected after blindly casting their ad messages in a general direction, hoping that some would get the message. On the other hand, instead of bombs, Mr. Tobaccowala likened internet advertisers as making “lots of spearheads and then (getting) people to impale themselves.” The concept of internet advertising leverages on consumers themselves who actively spread the word about the product by interacting with what they see and read online.