Making Sense of Social Media

Social Media

Social networking sites have made getting your message out to like-minded people faster and cheaper than ever before. They provide free marketing by leveraging the power of groups and friends. You can use site-builders to add video, pictures, text, links and hosting is free. These sites can be set-up as communication and traffic funnels to your primary business website and are also a component of effective search engine optimization.

Here is a list of social networking sites that your company should be visible on:

My Space

Most famous in the U.S. but not heavily adopted internationally, it is dominated by Generation-Y users and began with an emphasis on music. The site allows you to create your own website, blog, post bulletins and send messages to “friends” that you collect in your network.

Twitter

Known as today’s water cooler, Twitter works like a group chat to share “what you are doing” with connected friends and family. With diligence, you can create a following of people who are interested in what you are working on.

Facebook

More complex than Twitter and a more mature audience than MySpace, Facebook allows you to create a personal website, share and connect with like-minded people.

Digg

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. The shared content turns into a conversation and allows people to vote on an idea or comment you post.

Squidoo

Squidoo allows you to make and share “lenses” which are web pages anyone can create on topics they care about. You can earn income by creating links to ecommerce sites such as Ebay and Amazon. A lens gets shared between groups and you can promote your site to other Squidoo users. Squidoo sites are also considered “authority” sites by the major search engines so it’s possible to reach high search rankings (first page of Google) if you use the right keywords in the title and lens description.

Here are some valuable tips for making Social Networking Sites effective response sites:

• Don’t overcrowd the site or use fancy graphics. Less is more. This is the biggest mistake I see online marketers make on these sites…too many videos, too many pictures and too many graphics.
• Make the focal point of your site a single video or text offer that directs a visitor to an opt-in site for an ethical bribe.
• Allow people to look at 1 thing, not 50. If they have more than one choice, they won’t make any.
• Make it a business site, not a personal site that has a bunch of your friends making inappropriate comments. Don’t directly sell your business but rather tell your story.
• Only invite others from your target market to become your ‘friends’. It’s best to invite people who have similar interests or background because they will be most likely to connect with you.
• Let people get to know you. People don’t want to be sold something outright, build relationships first and then offer an ethical bribe to bring a prospect closer to what you are selling.

To learn how social media can become part of an effective online marketing campaign, contact Halo Effect, an Arizona internet marketing firm for a free assessment of your business website.