Social Media – Back to Business Basics

• November 9th

  This week, we are back to basics. Being immersed in the industry of social media, I have to remind myself that not everyone, particularly in small business is really across what is happening on the social and business web. So, today we are looking at some of the benchmark areas that are widely accepted as social media today.

  There are many definitions that cover social media and the role it plays. Perhaps this definition best describes social media:

  “Social media is content that is generated by the individual user which is shared over the Internet via different platforms where you can promote sharing, engagement and collaboration.”

  The main social media platform that has seen a huge increase is Facebook. It actually surpassed Google for traffic for one day in March 2010; that is truly amazing.

  As you can see the effectiveness of social media is huge and therefore should be added to your marketing strategies as a vital marketing tool. Having a good website is just not enough, you must implement a strong social media strategy to compliment your site – and you can do this well, whether you have a large budget, or a minimal budget! (see the “competitive edge” series of webinars if your budget is smaller than you’d ideally wish and you need some fast, effective support!)

  The most effective process of social media is by building your social authority on the Internet. You must always remember that a good strategy is not to keep marketing your product or service all the time, even though this sounds counter-intuitive, it is why you should build your social authority with credibility so that people know that they can trust you.

  Following are some statistics showing you what affect social media has worldwide:

  - Facebook now has over 750 million users as at June 2011
  - YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world
  - Twitter processed more than 1 billion tweets in December 2010 and on average has 40 million tweets per day
  - Social media has overtaken pornography as the No.1 activity on the web
  - Australia has some of the highest social media usage in the world. In Australia the usage of Facebook ranks the highest with over 9 million users spending almost 9 hours per month on Facebook
  - In the US, 22% of social networking now accounts for time spent online, and
  - The US Department of Education ran a study that showed online students out performed those that received face-to-face education

  Considering these statistics, if you aren’t using social media as part of your marketing strategy to increase the traffic to your website, then you are leaving some serious money on the table.

  I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences - positive, negative or otherwise…

  Turn social media to business profits

  Meredith

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