Social Media Marketing – Are you connected?

Whether your company is just starting out, starting to grow or already established, you need to continually evaluate the tools which will help build your business to the next stage. Social Media has shifted the way we talk to friends, family and our clients.

When evaluating your marketing dollars for 2011 you’ll want to ensure that 25 % of your marketing budget is directed to marketing yourself on the internet. If your target market is under 30 years old it may be as high as 50%.

If you follow this thought process you will definitely want to arm yourself with social media tools, that will play an important role in the development of your company’s marketing strategy and business development.

Getting the word out in today’s internet world is imperative and the marketing of you and your business will be given a big boost by social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Below is a quick overview for the big four of Social Media:

Facebook:
As of July 2010 Facebook has more than 500 million active users, which is about one person for every fourteen in the world. Users may create a personal profile, add other users as friends and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common interest user groups, organized by workplace, school, or college, or other characteristics.

The benefits of Facebook - Facebook is an excellent social networking source. You can have a business profile page, and different groups. It also has a great event tool which allows you to invite people to your next party or business social event.

Twitter:

Twitter is a website which offers a social networking and micro blogging service, enabling its users to send and read other users' messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user's profile page.

The benefits of Twitter - Twitter has many uses for both personal and business use. It's a great way to keep in touch with your friends and quickly broadcast information about where you are and what you're up to. For example, "I'm downtown and aching for some sushi, anyone like to join me?" For business, Twitter can be used to broadcast your company's latest news and blog posts, interact with your customers, or to enable easy internal collaboration and group communication.

YouTube:

YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. YouTube uses video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, and others are using this medium as a marketing tool. YouTube is the second biggest search engine tool after Google.

The benefits of YouTube - With YouTube you can create your own customized channel or customer base. Whenever a video is added to a YouTube account, it leads to the creation of one profile channel by itself. Keen viewers usually form a part of this channel and may also take its subscription. One may also promote their websites further by sending newsletters through e-mails to these subscribers. In other words, it can aid in building your customer list.

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn is mainly used for professional networking. As of August 2010, LinkedIn had more than 75 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. The purpose of the site is to allow registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The people in the list are called Connections. Users can invite anyone (whether a site user or not) to become a connection.

The benefits of LinkedIn:

For many professionals LinkedIn has become the social tool for professional networking on line. It’s a convenient way to stay connected to current colleagues and people who you’ve worked with in the past. It’s a great way to be connected with the owner’s and decision makers of the business world.

Social Media is a great way to share expertise with a target market of prospects and clients and to become a leader in your field. Build Your Business with Social Media and increase your market share with loyal followers.

Fore more information contact:

Donald Robichaud
FloodLight – Build Your Business
Kelowna / Ottawa / Toronto
Email
1-888-768-9415
http://www.floodlightconsulting.com/
http://donaldrobichaud.blogspot.com/