How is Social Media Used for Business?

That was a question someone asked me a week ago by a business owner who “targets individuals who are business owners/consultants and people within a certain age group”. She then added that she was ”wet behind the ears at this” and expressed hope that I could help figure out how to market her products. She further wanted to know “about blogging and how to attract followers and maybe even create a newsletter that could be linked to a social media site.”

One thing about me is I absolutely LOVE answering questions. I’d play Trivial Pursuit every day if only I could get my hubby (a Monopoly devotee) and my little one (a Candy Land fan) on board. Usually, when answering questions I write long detailed e-mails. But it occurred to me that I already adressed many of the above questions on my blog:

Let’s start with “what’s social media” – it’s basically a catch-phrase that refers to all the conversations between individuals, businesses and organizations, that happen online. These conversations can be in various formats – written words, videos, audio, photos, you name it. The key is not so much the form (full-length blog post, video, etc) or even specific channel used (Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc), but the fact that it’s a CONVERSATION (as opposed to a monologue). So if there’s a way for more than 1 party to join in and discuss things – through posts, comments, status updates, reviews, etc – then it belongs to social media.
 
As applied to specific channels:
 
Blogs – allow for conversations to happen through comments – that’s a social media channel
Facebook – is basically built on conversations – that’s also a social media channel
Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc… – conversations between users are either foundation of these sites (Twitter) or at least possible through commenting, linking, sharing, etc – that’s all social media channels
 
Newsletters (sent via e-mail) – if someone decides to respond to a newsletter article, there’s no easy way for them to do it other than e-mailing the newsletter author. Newsletters do not allow for open conversation easily visible to all parties; instead they are primarily means of one-way communication. So newsletters are NOT social media.
 
If you are considering whether to add social media to your marketing strategy, be aware of the barriers to avoid wasting valuable time and getting disappointed with the results.  

Of course, with tens of thousands blogs and hundreds of social networking/bookmarking sites, it’s important to narrow the list down quite a bit and figure out which social networks would be the best for you to be on. 
 
But there’s more to social media strategy than selecting the best channels. This post on building a social media strategy can help you get started. 

If you are considering blogging, then be aware of the time it’ll take to write and maintain a blog. It also helps to put together an editorial calendar at least for the first couple of months just until you get into the groove of things. I also wrote a post that helps decide whether to have a newsletter, a blog or both.
 
And don’t forget, you can leave questions for me in the post comments as well as by e-mailing me directly at yelena@oneclickva.com. Keep ‘em coming

Social Networks – Are You in the Right Ones?

Let’s say you, the business owner, want to start marketing your business using social media and, more specifically, social networks. So you hire a virtual assistant or a social media assistant to help you get going and she sends you a proposal with a list of networks she will get you on. Or maybe you do it all yourself… Continue reading

How to Get 5000 Twitter Followers by Next Monday

The single best social networking advice that I’ve ever heard and that’s been corroborated by many was to concentrate on quality, not quantity.  Quality meaning, of course, if you keep producing quality content and interact with others in a personal and un-spammy way, you will end up with a high-value, if possibly kind of smallish, network.  

But what if you really REALLY need to have a lot of followers for some big announcement or… Continue reading

Should I Automate Social Media

If you already have social networking profiles, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. then you know that you need a lot of time to maintain all this virtual “real estate”. You also know that as a small business owner you are already pretty much maxed out. Fortunately, automation comes to the rescue!

But wait, aren’t you supposed to be 100% authentic and automation is the opposite of that? Wouldn’t automating some… Continue reading

New Year Resolutions, Not Again!

A few weeks ago I stumbled on a great little blog and immediately subscribed to it. There were two things I loved about it. One was the level of transparency and unpretensiousness @earningathome established from her very first post.

But what really got me hooked on subscribing and reading all the updates (and some of the archives) is the goal-setting and goal-tracking that are at the core of this blog… Continue reading