Use Twitter for Your Business

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Seeing as how Twitter is becoming more and more popular amongst businesses (even Walmart uses it!) we have decided to give you a quick over view of some Twitter best practises.

Top 10 Twitter Tips:

1)    Make objectives about what you want to achieve by using Twitter, and stick to them. You need to know what you want to achieve with Twitter. If there are too many things, create more than one account – each one should have its own agenda and credibility. Think about your user name. If you want to build up awareness for your own name brand, use your name, but if you want to build up your company name, you could try a mix of your name and the company name or just the company – depending on the length of your company name. E.G Leila_Interleado. You don’t want to use a name like superstar69 because it gives absolutely nothing away about you or your company and it doesn’t inspire any kind of credibility.

2)    When you add your avatar try not to add a picture of you wearing a giant silly hat, or you sitting in a boardroom. You want to be a human as well as professional. You also want to inspire confidence in your business capabilities and not look like a joker. Keep it simply you -and enforce your brand (whether it’s a personal brand, company brand, or your voice in the company brand).

3)    Add your URL and a small bio to your profile. People will have an online reference to learn about what you are offering them or what else there is to learn about you. Your profile reflects your brand.

4)    Twitter is like micro blogging. Your messages have a limit of 140 characters. Make them count.

5)    Twitter is no longer there just to tell people that your dog had 5 adorable puppies and you have decided to name them all Bob and Trudy. Now is the time to use Twitter to tell people about your business goals, your professional interests, to spread knowledge and offer customer support. Use your own ideas to spread the messages – be unique!

6)    That said, by no means is it deemed acceptable to spam your followers with “Tweets”* only concerning your company and how great it is. This is a sure fire way to either lose follower or not gain any. Add a human touch by passing on the link to an article you found funny or interesting. Tweet about issues you have online, things you found on your way to work, ask questions and reply to what other “Twits (or Tweeps)”** say. Offer customer support for example. Be useful but keep a balance.

7)    Add followers who you think you can learn from.  Hopefully they will think the same of you and follow you in return. It’s about building up a network here, the more useful all the connections are the better for you and everyone who networks with you. This means not automatically following people who follow you too. Depending on what you want to achieve, it seems logical that you would only follow people who have things to say that you find useful or interesting in any way. This is a chance to gain new blog readers, newsletter subscribers or software users. Again, this depends on what you want to achieve with Twitter.

8)    If you like what one of your followers  contributed, say so! By “Retweeting”*** what one of your followers or someone you are following says, you let them know that you found what they said interesting and that you are willing to share it with others . You could also reply to them or send a direct message and let them know. To retweet something, users typically type in “Retweeting” and the user name with an @ in front of it to show who posted it originally e.g. “Retweeting @LeilaPan” then paste the Tweet here. To reply to someone you type in the user name with an @ before it e.g. “@LeilaPan nice article!”. Users can be notified when they get these replies so they will know you replied to them or retweeted their message and may be more inclined to return the favour. Try to keep  a balance though, people can see when you are Tweeting your own messages or when you are replying or Retweeting – make sure you have your own voice.

9)    Use Twitter regularly. The more you use it, the more interaction people see. The more use people see in following you and the more followers you will receive!

10)    Twitter can give you insight you may not have had before. It can form part of your online reputation management. Track what people say about you or your company, or both! See if people are Tweeting your articles. By responding to what people say about your brand you build up your network and credibility.

Of course there are many Twitter tools and resources out there to help you use the application as best you can. It’s all about using it and finding out what works for you. You might also want to brush up on your Twitter lingo (you could even make up your own Twords! Twitter words…that one’s all mine.) Twittering can be fun, and keeps the communication lines with your target audience wide open.

The most important thing to remember is that this takes time, but it is becoming more and more widely accepted as a way to interact with existing and potential customers or even your niche heroes.

If you would like to follow some Interleado employees, you can follow me or Interleado’s CEO, Peter Cullen.

*Twitter posts

**Twitter users

***Reposting a Tweet

Tags: twitter, Twitter Tips

The Key to Social Media Marketing Success

Overview: Social media marketing and social bookmarking sites are becoming increasingly more popular on the internet today. Generally speaking, they are sites on which communities use to share information, discuss and vote for, but how can sites such as Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, and YouTube help you to become successful ethically online?

Using social networking sites, you can promote articles or web pages that you feel will benefit the internet community. Your goal is to create a buzz and have people comment, bookmark or share things that they find interesting or useful.

So How do You Get Started?  Creating content on your web site that is interesting or useful to a site visitor is the first step, without this your site will not be ‘sticky’ and will not be deemed as popular by users of social networking sites. Writing ‘How to’ articles is a good example of useful content, i.e. ‘How to shortlist candidates for web design in Bournemouth’.

Why Use Social Media Marketing?  Although it won’t make you a direct profit, social marketing will drive traffic to your site that is targeted towards your theme or ‘niche’. Having a clean and well thought out design on your web site will let visitors navigate through other pages and find other areas of the site that are profitable to you. You can also embed hyperlinks within your article content that can link to products or other pages.

Increasing Initial Traffic to your site:  The main goal of social network marketing is to drive targeted traffic to your site, this can come directly from a social media site, or a site that has linked to yours after finding it through a social bookmark or tag. When you post on a social media site, you can get immediate targeted traffic if your post title and article description draws people in, try to think of teasers that get people interested and want to read more.

Gaining Longer Term Traffic:  The more links you have pointing to your web site the more popular your site becomes in the eyes of Google and other search engines, this can make a massive impact on your search engine positioning results over time and will drive even more targeted traffic through search engine results.

Every time you post on a social media networking site, you increase your site’s exposure which means that people will be more likely to link directly to your site. This can be a very powerful way of building natural back links to your web site which is looked on favourably by search engines.

Cost compared to traditional marketing:  One of the best things about social media marketing is that it costs nothing! When you compare this to more traditional marketing methods such as Pay Per Click you can really start to see the benefits. Effectively you are creating a steady flow of free organic traffic.

Increase Awareness of Your Web Site:  Through this method of marketing you will increase the brand awareness of your site and you can create a buzz about something that relates to your products or services. With the increased popularity of social media, you can not afford to miss out on the trend!

Tags: internet marketing, Search Engine, social marketing, Social Networking, Traffic

Gear Up Your Site For Social Media Marketing

The year 2006 saw the emergence of social media. If you are engaged in operating a website, you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media sites for increased traffic.
You should also introduce social media components to your site because web users are experiencing these new form of interactions in more and more sites and they may have an expectation of the same from your site also.
If you want to attract repeat visitors and want them to stay longer, your focus this year should be on the social aspects of your site.
Social media use technologies like RSS, blogging, podcasting, tagging, etc. and offer social networking (MySpace, Facebook), social video and picture sharing (YouTube, Flickr), and community-based content ranking (Digg, MiniClip) features.
The central theme of these sites is user generated contents used for sharing among the end-users. The social aspects of these sites are to allow users to setup social communities, invite friends and share common interests.
You don’t have to change your site completely within a month or so to take advantages of these new technologies. Introduce small changes incrementally through out the year and you will be on your way to meet these new challenges.
The first step is to declare who you are to the online community. People should be able to relate to you. Unless they know more about you, you will be just an unknown identity and most people don’t like to deal with unknowns. Create an About Us page and list your achievements and skills.
Create a MySpace page and link your bio in the About Us page to the MySpace page. Also provide a link back from the MySpace page to your website. Spend an hour every week to develop your online social network in MySpace. Invite a few of these new friends to write blog articles at your site about your products or services.
Install a free blog software and start publishing at least one article in your blog. Provide an easy bookmarking feature to social bookmarking sites like delicious. This is done by providing an action button for each article in your site. The action button takes users to the submission page of the bookmarking site.
Also, provide an action button for direct posting of blog articles to digg. Digg is a popular news ranking site. A well dugg article will bring thousands of visitors to your site.
Provide a forum at your site for users to discuss your products and services. Don’t delete negative comments because they provide insights into the improvements needed to serve your visitors better. However, censor hate speeches and meaningless bantering. Register your forum at BoardTracker. BoardTracker is a forum search engine.
If you are offering products, allow users to review and rate your products. This will help you in inventory management because you may want to discontinue low rated products.
Provide RSS feeds for your new products, blogs, forum postings, etc. An RSS feed provides teasers of your contents. Users will use RSS readers to scan your teasers and visit your site for more information if the teasers draw their attentions.
Publish all your feeds at feedburner. Feedburner provides media distribution and audience engagement services for RSS feeds. They also provide an advertising network for your feeds. If you have quality contents, you will be able to monetize your contents using their services.
Create short how-to or new product videos and post these videos in social video sharing sites like YouTube, Google video. Provide a few start and end frames in these videos to introduce your site with your site url. Post these videos using catchy titles, teasing descriptions, and appropriate tags to make them discoverable.
Provide embedded links to your posted videos in your site. This will save your bandwidth and storage space because the videos reside in the video sharing sites.
Besides videos, use social photo sharing sites like Flickr to share pictures related to contents in your site. Use the same title, description and tag techniques discussed earlier for social video sites.
Provide a Send to Friend feature for all products and services you offer. This feature is a link that sends the article, product description, etc. to a recipient via e-mail.
For starter, Yahoo provides a service called Action Buttons (search for Yahoo Action Buttons) that add links to your website for users to share, save, and blog about your website. The Yahoo action buttons use delicious for social bookmarking, and Yahoo blog site for blogging. It also has a print feature.
The social media is not a fad. It is here to stay and bring in profound changes to web surfers’ experiences. It is the right time for implementing features that will make your site social media friendly. Also, using marketing techniques that utilize popular social media sites, you will be able to bring traffic to your site.

Tags: Social Media Marketing, Social Video

How is social media marketing driving E-commerce

The whole world seems to be integrated in the virtual world of social networking websites.  In case of Twitter and Facebook, it is insanely big and it should not come as a surprise if one spends a whole day or more just scaling through these social networking websites.  What started as a hub for friends and like-minded people to meet has quickly turned into something so large that it could set the prospects of your business soaring.  Here are top five reasons why social media can drive e-commerce.

Tags: e-commerce, internet marketing, search engine optimization, sem, SEO, Seo Company India, SMM, social media

How can social media marketing help your brand?

As part of an integrated marketing plan, social media is the online marketing element that can best be described as the new word-of-mouth marketing. In the past consumers didn’t have any control over marketing messages but new technology gives consumers power by allowing them to decide which brands they want to engage with. This shift in power makes it vitally important for brands to entice consumers to want to engage with them. Social media present brands with the opportunity to engage with consumers and get them to spread the brand message. When this is done correctly, social media can turn brand ambassadors into brand evangelists. With so many platforms available anyone with Internet access can become a publisher through networks like Facebook, Twitter and so many others. Consumers can publish their opinions, experiences and thoughts whilst choosing who they want to interact with. Thus, social media gives consumers the power to have their voice heard. Social media ties in with other online marketing elements like search engine optimisation (SEO) and online reputation management (ORM) as part of an online marketing strategy. It’s a mistake to think that social media and search are mutually exclusive. Twitter or Facebook profiles and blogs are showing up more frequently on the first page of search engine results, whether the group, fan page or blog is owned by the brand or not. In terms of your “Google CV” it looks good if the group or blog post is of a positive nature, praising the service of a brand, but it is a completely different story when it is negative. For instance on the first page of Google’s search results for “SAA” the blog “SAA Sucks” is listed. This of course is where Online Reputation Management (ORM) is all too important to include as part of your social media campaign strategy. Unfortunately, social media is not as easy as setting up a Twitter account, creating a Facebook fan page and ticking social media off on your marketing to-do list. Social media requires continuous activity and engagement. Amongst other things, social media platforms can be utilised to execute ORM. For instance, by using search.twitter.com brands can see what is being said about them in the Twittersphere. Vida e Caffé is one of the South African brands using Twitter to their benefit. Others include Virgin Active South Africa, First National Bank and iBurst. These brands use Twitter to respond to questions, complaints, compliments and offer advice. You don’t have to be everywhere, but it is important to have a presence on the more mainstream social networks like Twitter and Facebook. When a brand decides to engage with its consumers through social media there are a few generally accepted conventions to which one should adhere, for instance: – Do not spam your readers and followers with marketing messages and promotional offers – Encourage dialogue and be interactive, remember it is a conversation! – Always respond to questions, queries and comments, whether it is good, bad or ugly When a brand offers valuable content it is sure to see ROI from social media. Social media marketing can be complicated to execute, especially when it comes to closing the loop, maintaining consistency and starting a viral effect. If you would like to know how social media can enhance awareness for your brand as part of an online marketing strategy, contact AlterSage for a consultation.

Tags: Altersage, Emarketing, online marketing, pay per click advertising, search engine optimization, social media, South Africa

Understanding Social Media Marketing

A lot of people are confused by the term “social media marketing” and believe that it is only advertising on a social networking site, where networks monitor what users are doing and place ads next to them, hoping they will get a click. However, social media marketing is actually about different kinds of collaborations between people and finding ways that individual fans of a particular brand product or even a company can endorse it themselves on various social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others.
Social media marketing differs from industrial media marketing in that industrial media generally uses very expensive tools requiring a great deal of financial capital to publish its information, where as social media marketing uses fairly inexpensive tools that enables anyone anywhere to publish or access information. Both social media and industrial media have the capability to reach a small audience of one or two, or large audiences of millions. However, the time lag is generally much longer between a communications from industrial media as compared to social media when responses can be instantaneous. In addition, there are currently few, if any, limitations on social media such as on pages or hours. The audiences are encouraged to be active participants, to add comments, or blog or even edit articles or stories, as they deem necessary.
Social media optimization, or SMO, uses methods that generate publicity through social media and online community websites. There are many different types of technologies and applications for social media like blogs, vlogs, wikis, emails, podcasts, instant messaging and many more. Two of the most popular reference services are Google and Wikipedia. You can share photos at Flickr, videos at YouTube, personal music at Last.fm, microblog on Jaiku and Twitter. Besides the now universally known Facebook and MySpace, you can also go social networking on Avatars United, Youmeo and Second Life (social network via virtual reality).
Experts insist that social media is here to stay. Companies are now recognizing the need to be more involved in social media marketing, because it is through these channels that they can hear most quickly and honestly what consumers need and want. Businesses are learning that they now no longer wield absolute control over the behavior and buying decisions of their consumers. By paying attention, for instance, to a pro- or anti- product blog from a consumer, marketers have access to open customer discussions they never had before and then, in turn, open their own dialogue to be able to drive the needed change quickly.
Social media marketing opens up a world of fast-flowing creative experimentation where an idea can be tested online in the morning and by afternoon there is a response. Social media techniques should be combined into the marketing mix to optimize the places where the impact can be maximized. The key element in successful social media marketing is to be swift but make sure to drive change in proactive way rather than being reactive.

Tags: bookmarking, search engine optimization, SEO, social media

Social Media Marketing- the Top 10 Mistakes People Will Make in Social Media in 2009

Here we go again!
Another year and another great possibility! With the election of Obama to the presidency, there is Hope and all are looking for a great future.
But I am sitting here thinking of all the folks in social Media that are going to be frustrated again in their social Media marketing efforts. wondering why they are not getting the traction or friends that they thought they should. And the main reason is that they continue to make the same mistakes in Social Media as last year.
Are YOU going to do that- I sure hope not. You may not have the power of a Robert Scoble, or the personality of a Gary Vanyerchuck, or the mind of a Chris Brogan, or the networking focus of a Mari Smith or Coach Deb micek. Or even the amazing writing talent of a Scott Monty.
At least not yet.
But you CAN accelerate your Social Media Success this year by avoiding these top 10 mistakes made by people in Social media in 2009.
Ok…what are they?
1) Lack of Consistent Visibility.
You cannot make a path and create a presence in Social Media, without CONSISTENTLY being SEEN and HEARD with your message. Ask Carrie Wilkerson. Or Timothy Carter. NOT going to happen. That is why that you MSUT create a Presence on the web DAILY- and be seen and heard as part of the community. A tree does not grow part time. It must be consistent in it’s efforts. It is the saem with your Social Media marketing.
2) Focusing too much on being heard.
LISTEN first- THEN talk. Social Media is about Listening to what is being said- by your prospects and customers- and social media in general. You would never enter a party or social event and immediately start yelling out what you wanted to talk about.
Neither should you in Social Media. LISTEN and then LEARN- and then Let your voice be heard- ONLY as a part of the existing conversation. Your time to start the conversation will come.
3) Taking, instead of GIVING to the Social Media Community.
Ahhhhh- lots of takers out in the Web 2,0 world. But NOT YOU. GIVE first. Give Value. Give Suggestions. Give Advice. Give ideas. Give Encouragement. Give News. Give New Possibilities. Give Words of Gratitude. But do NOT take relentlessly. You will be shunned and labeled as such.
If you REALLY want to create powerful influence- GIVE. How does that work?
GIVE = Gain Influence Very Easily. Give FIRST – and you will never come in Second.
4) Not Joining groups.
Groups are where you can have some of the greatest growth and learning. I belong to a ton of groups. Why? Because of 2 reasons: 1) I learn a lot from other people. 2) I CONNECT with the folks in the group.
Groups are a “secret weapon” that you should use on as many social sites as you can. They will not only Enlarge you- but also the possibilities that the group can bring to your life.
5) Not attending Events.
Events ROCK. And you should be attending at leat 1 event a week to do 2 things: 1) Become more Visible. 2) To learn from people that know things you do not.
Events are what i call the “Hidden University” of social Media. You can learn a LOT and grow a lot from events.
Look at the events that interest you. And pick on event that mildly interests you. And see if you can learn something even from that event. I have an event journal. and every event that i attend- i keep a log of what was said so i can review it later. You may want to do the same.
6) Not enough VALUE in what they are doing.
Value RULES in Social Media. And we train on what we call “Surprising Value.” This is the type of Value that is so great and unexpected that it surprises the person that discovers it. Put More Value in your POSTS. Put more Value in your PODCASTS. Put more Value in your Conversations. Put more Value in your Articles. Put More Value in your Recommendations. Put More Value in YOU and what you bring to the Social Media table.
Value RULES. And the one with the MOST value at the end of the day- reigns.
7) Joining Too Many Social Media sites.
There are about 3,600 Social Media sites. You need maybe 5-7. You read that right. You need 5-7 PRIMARY Social Sites. Then you need maybe 25-30, or even 50 Secondary sites for Link Building and traffic purposes. The main sites that you should be a part of- is up to you. My ‘Big 7? are facebook, twitter, youtube, LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, Plaxo, and Wordpress- along with mashable. These are the CORE of my Social Media Marketing.
Do I belong to more? Heavens yes- a LOT more’ but have automated those through ping.fm and other social software.
Do NOT try and be seen on a hundred sites. Facebook alone can keep you busy with over 200 million people. The same with myspace, or friendster. Master ONE site while mastering social media and then another, and then another, until you have YOUR “Big 7.” And then automate the rest. Focusing too much on Monetizing Social Media.
Nothing wrong with monetization on the internet. We do it a LOT- and daily. But focusing too much on that in social media- is , well…not cool. People do not mind knowing about an offer, or new info product. But how about giving some VALUE first with it- then invite them to an event- and then at the end of the conference call or webinar-give them a chance to purchase your produst.
What do I see daily? Urls and messages SELLING SELLING SELLING! Whew- wish that would not happen so blatantly. It has gotten better, but if you have a great content rich info product- here is a novel idea: GIVE part of the info away FIRST’and let the person ASK you for the product if they like it.
Hmmm….that just might be an idea worth considering.
9) Thinking that You are Nobody and Social Media Success is for other people.
Ask Chris Brogan. Ask Scott Monty. Ask Alejandro Reyes. Ask Brian Solis. Ask Dave Taylor. Ask Shama Hyder. EVRYONE has a great possibility to becoming SOMEBODY in Social Media. THAT is the beauty of the culture. Everyone who contributes Value and Connection- is more than welcome to achieve whatever they want. Chris Brogan once had 10 readers of his blog. Now he has almost 40,000 people following him on twitter alone. Brian Clark of copyblogger fame once had 10 readers. So did Scoble. So did Monty. So did Shama. And the list is endless.
There is GREATNESS inside of you-and there is NO BETTER place than Social Media to unleash it upon the world. You ARE Somebody- and always have been. YOU are a Social Media Rockstar- in training!
10) Not Branding Yourself Strong Enough.
Branding is a tool that we all use in Social Media. It is WHO YOU ARE- and what people remember about you. It could be a phrase-”Just Do It (TM)”- or a slogan- “”We’ve Got You Covered.” Or even a questions- “Can You Hear me Now?” or just a Name-”Trump.”
You need to get a slogan or phrase that you can start wrapping in your messages. You need to get an image that speaks what you want the public to see and know. And you need to decide -what is the ONE THING I want people to think of FIRST- when they think of me and my company? THAT is the start of a good brand build. Do not be just another face in the web 2.0 world. Set yourself apart and above the fray with a brand that rocks. We teach what is called “Connection Branding” and we have saying:
“Do NOT just be known or remembered- become UNFORGETTABLE.” ™
THAT is what you need to do!
These are the top 10 mistakes people will make in Social Media in 2009. Yes, i Know there are others- but these are the ones that i see as the most prevalent in Social Media marketing.
blessings..doug firebaugh

Tags: Doug Firebaugh, Home Business, social marketing, social media, Social Media Training, Social Networking, Web 2.0

Social Media Marketing Measurement

Social networking sites such as Facebook have given marketers a new approach to Internet advertising — something called viral marketing. Viral marketing is really just a high-tech form of word of mouth advertising. Here’s how it works. Suppose you own a bakery. You have lots of loyal customers, but, like any business owner, you would like to have more. You create a free page on Facebook describing your business, and you update it frequently with news about special promotions or new product offerings. You encourage your customers to visit your page and become “fans” of it. When they do, you can send them automated updates, and they can visit your page with just one click from their Facebook accounts. To increase traffic to your page, you might decide to buy targeted ads on Facebook. So far this approach is rather conventional. It is really no different from the way businesses have used the Internet for a number of years. But something else happens when people become fans of your Facebook page: the name of your business is added to their personal profile. Now all their Facebook friends see that they are fans of your business. Some of them become fans, and the process (you hope) just goes on and on. This is the essence of viral marketing: encouraging people to pass on a marketing message to others. If your message is appealing, it has the potential to spread exponentially throughout your community and beyond. Facebook has actually taken the concept of viral marketing one step further. Suppose you decide to run a Facebook ad targeted to everyone in your local area. Suppose, also, that you have a Facebook page with 100 fans, and each one of those fans has 50 Facebook “friends.” When those friends see your ad, it will say something like this: “Sample our delicious baked goods. Your friend Adam Smith is a fan.” Clearly the potential for viral marketing is enormous, but how do you measure its effectiveness? Earlier approaches to Internet marketing used some traditional methods of measuring how well an ad worked. For example, each ad might have a unique 800 phone number for responses. Or each ad might have a link to a coded discount coupon that customers could print out or use online. But these traditional methods don’t lend themselves to social media marketing. Marketers have developed new approaches to measuring the effectiveness of a social media campaign. They measure such things as:

What is missing from these measurements is data on conversions (sales). As social media marketing matures, advertisers will keep looking for ways to measure results in terms of dollars rather than clicks.

Tags: Marketing Measurement, social media, Viral Marketing

The Advantages of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing has come a long way in the past few years. Social media marketing companies such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become so expansive that they attract visitors in the millions. It is estimated that visitors watch over 100 million YouTube videos per day. There are more than 30 million active Facebook users, and over 19 million visitors to Twitter. So what exactly is “social media marketing”, and what are some of its advantages?Simply put, social media marketing is a “rendezvous” of multiple online communities, with one goal in mind: to generate exposure. This about it. There are millions of people interacting in these online communities, sharing ideas and opportunities, providing the perfect atmosphere for larger corporations to increase their exposure and attract prospective customers, ultimately perpetuating a cycle of increasing revenue.By allowing supporters of a company the authority to promote their products, an individual is provided compensation for advertising and promoting a product, through various online mediums. Here’s how it happens: someone works as a representative of a company. As a representative, he/she will get paid a fixed rate of X for going onto online forums and interacting with other individuals on messageboards, promoting a certain product. As a result, whoever is a part of that particular online community will get exposure to the company and its products, and they may become a customer. If they do, they may recommend the brand to friends and family. If they do not, they may recommend the brand anyway – the point is, the company is getting exposure, from people, to people.When was the last time you saw a commercial for a product that you suspected was “too good to be true.” You probably did not pay any attention to it, and flipped the channel. What if that same product was advertised on an online forum or blog, by someone who has used the product, and SWORE by it? People are more impressionable when they get a firsthand opinion from someone who does not stand to directly benefit. Many online sales reps aren’t paid. Those “unofficial” reps are still very much heard, and they are much more numerous.This is just one example of social media marketing, but it clearly illustrates its advantages: low costs and higher yields, greater exposure to further establish a company and distinguish it amongst others, and generating overall publicity at the cellular level, so to speak.Ali Hussain2K Computer Solutionshttp://2kcomputersolutions.com

Tags: Advantages, internet marketing, social media, Social Media Marketing

Why Subscribers and Community-Building Are Vital to Your Social Media Marketing Strategy?

If you want your social media marketing campaign and online brand to flourish, you must build a powerful community of subscribers, a.k.a. fans.  Subscribers are a key ingredient to the success of popular websites because they allow you to further the reach of your online communications. Here are some of the top reasons why building a subscriber base is such a vital component of your social media marketing success. 

RSS Feed Users Are Often Web Publishers Themselves:

Did you know that eleven percent or less of web users know how to use RSS?  It makes sense that those who are savvy enough to use RSS are also the ones who produce and share information on the web.  When you build your RSS subscribers, you are forming relationships with influential people who are the movers and shakers of the web.  As long as you do a great job of providing quality content that is worth spreading, your subscribers are bound to help you out by getting your message to more people, who may in turn spread your message even further. 

Subscribers Build Community:

The communities of social media are what attract users.  Compelling communities that flourish attract more people and make sites worth visiting.  For example, as the community on Facebook grew and attracted people from all walks of life, people were slowly drawn away from Myspace and moved over to Facebook. 

The More Subscribers You Have, the More Inbound Links You Get:

As you grow your subscriber base, an increasing number of them will consider you as a source of linkable content.  Many web publishers are constantly on the hunt for great content that they can link to or refer to in their own posts.  If you consistently provide high quality content, they will look to you as a resource.  The more times your content is linked to, the more SEO benefits you will get from link juice.  You can accomplish this simply by making an effort to constantly provide great content.  The occasional link bait wouldn’t hurt either. 

Your Subscribers Will Motivate You to Produce Better Content:

The more you grow your subscriber base, the more feedback you will receive about your content.  The feedback you get will enable you to learn more about your niche and how you can serve your subscribers better.  When you know that your reach is growing, you will inevitably make a greater effort to produce excellent content that gets people talking.  As a result, you will improve your work in many aspects and become an authority in your niche. 

Social Proofing Benefits:

Subscribers serve as social proofing.  When new visitors to your site see that you have lots of subscribers/fans, they are more likely to believe that your site is worth visiting and subscribing to.  When new visitors see your subscriber list, they will give you the time of day and be more likely to join your community right then and there. 

Less Reliance on Traditional PR:

Traditional PR methods such as pitching to the media and other bloggers will no longer be a necessity if you have a large subscriber base.  When you grow your subscriber base, you will see increasing returns for your communications.  Media coverage will come naturally, without you having to solicit it. 

No matter what type of online business you have, you will be in a better position than your competitors if you build a specific audience around your content.  When you build that audience and connect with them on a personal level, it takes your social media marketing campaign up a notch, enabling you to grow your online brand. 

How to Grow Your Subscriber Base:

Now that you understand why it is so important for you to grow your online subscriber base, here are a few tips on how you can accomplish the task.  First off, you must create content that gets people’s attention. It must have networking built into it and encourage people to share it with others.  Your content must also contain multiple hooks to get more visitors to join.  Great content is usually the biggest pull but you should also use other methods to attract new subscribers. 

Make sure your content is focused on your niche.  Your goal should be to consistently meet the expectations of your subscribers.  People are going to visit your site expecting a certain type of content so try not to go off topic too much and you will build a stronger, more tight-knit community. 

Surely there are plenty of other communities in your niche already.  In order to attract more subscribers, study the existing communities and try to do things differently from them.  When you focus on topics or details that existing communities in your niche aren’t touching upon, you can achieve online growth much more quickly. 

Tags: Internet Marketing Services India, Social Media Marketing