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Stay Connected with your client base with Social Media

 

As you are already aware, over the last several years, many social network sites have been popping up and have taken the world by storm.

 

One of the first was about eight years ago, when Myspace was all the rage. We all had a Myspace or at least knew several people who had one. These sites were used primarily for communicating with friends and family.

 

 

However, specifically in the last 2 to 3 years, many more social networking sites have been coming into the limelight and taking center stage. The difference this time is that in addition to the sites being used for friends and family, almost every successful business is using them to market their products and services.

 

How often do you see “follow us on facebook” or “follow us on twitter” on television commercials, print ads and almost every website?

 

The answer is every day, many times a day.

 

Why is that?  Is it really that important to utilize these sites as part of a successful marketing campaign? ABSOLUTELY!

 

Let’s first take a look at why it’s imperative to utilize this marketing as a integral way to grow your business and increase sales.

 

• These sites already rank at the top of the search engines and have millions of visitors going to them each and every day. Therefore, if you can get customers to your facebook site or other social media site, you can simply talk about your business and provide the website address so that clients can go from your facebook, directly to your website.

   

  These sites do not typically charge you to set up a profile and utilize them. They make their money by selling advertising on their sites, not by you using their site as a marketing tool.

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• These companies are well known and their logos are recognizable worldwide. Recognition and familiarity are big reasons people may visit and shop your website. Just like credit card logos, these logos and company names brand you as a viable business in this competitive world.

   

• You can keep in touch with all of your customers by simply updating your social marketing sites. If these people are friends or contacts on your social network, every time you update and add new content, they can see it on their facebook, twitter, blog, or blackberry!

   

• Many of these sites have friend finder features or programs that will search it’s network for possible friends, colleagues and customers based on your profile. It can recognize who you may already know and be able to network with, in addition to you doing searches for new contacts on your own.

 

Ok, now that you understand WHY you need to be involved in a Social Marketing Campaign, what websites do we recommend for marketing and implementing such a strategy?

 

Well, we have been working with the following 5 social websites with great success. 

Most of these sites you have heard of or should recognize.

 

 

Facebook By far the most recognized social marketing site out there.  As of July 2010, there are over 500 million facebook users.  Hows that for potential customers!  Using this site to market and bring potential clients to your site is something you must be doing!

 

Twitter This is an easy way to stay in touch with your clients without being intrusive.  They simply sign up to “follow” you on Twitter and each time you post an update to your Twitter site, they are sent either an email or a text of your short and to the point message.  Twitter messages cannot exceed 140 characters so a short one or two sentence message is usually appropriate.

 

 

LinkedIn This is like a myspace for business professionals.  This is used for you to network with other business owners, suppliers, and any other contacts that could be used to grow your business.  Many a person connects and finds potentially lucrative contacts using LinkedIn.  You never know, you may find you next big supplier, partner, or investor here!

 

 

Blogger.com Blogger.com is an online journal of entries in chronological order. 

This is a good place to type updates on your business, specials you may be running, any related thoughts in regards to your website, product line, or our internet marketplace.  Blogs should be posted weekly or at least every other week so that people continue to visit and look forward to your messages.  Keep them interesting and relevant and this can become a big tool to gaining customers and keeping them customers for many years.

 

 

Merchant Circle Having a site with Merchant Circle will help you connect with businesses around the country and since they have a high ranking with google and yahoo, new and existing customers can find you here too.  Merchant Circle allows you to create a mini profile about your business, people can add reviews, you can run discount coupons, and provide your business information so that people can get to your main website.  When logged into merchant circle, you will see how many people visited your profile and where the traffic was from.  Best of all, you pay nothing for this traffic!!!!