About a week ago, over a nice Saturday night dinner out, one of my friends asked me, “What is all of this Facebook and Twitter stuff? I don’t get it.” Needless to say, we didn’t stop talking about my answer to her question until dessert was done and our coffee cups were empty!
Facebook and Twitter are examples of social media websites. What are social media websites? They are websites where people can simply and cheaply reach out to develop and maintain relationships. Everyday conversations that used to happen at the street corner now happen online. Social media websites are booming in popularity because they offer the technological tools to help people keep in touch, and they offer businesses a more effective way to promote their brand, communicate with customers, drive new sales, and recruit elite employees. In fact, many businesses now have full-time employees who are completely devoted to managing and updating their company’s social media websites.
One of the most important things to remember about social media is that it’s a forum to engage in conversation, not to broadcast information. The Internet used to be a place where companies would merely post online brochures about what they do. Now, Internet users aren’t happy with merely absorbing information, they want to actively participate.
Research has proven that it’s not a smart use of dollars to advertise on these social media websites, because they are a place where people want to engage in conversation and contribute content.
Here is more information about the top three social media websites that businesses are using:
Facebook - In a matter of a year, Facebook has become one of the premier personal and business networking tools that people use. Last August, Facebook signed up its 100 millionth member, and now, less than a year later, it has already more than doubled, with more than 200 million users. Facebook is a place where you can share your company’s news with your “friends”, aka customers. It’s easy to post blogs, photo albums, informational videos, web links about company news, and invite your “friends” to company events, such as a charity golf tournament.
Twitter - Twitter is up to more than 20 million unique visitors per month in the United States alone. Providing an open format that lends itself to instant communication, Twitter users “tweet” what they are doing, in a micro-blog, 140 characters or fewer format, and their “followers” respond. It’s more for short, quick communication messages than it is to share photo albums and movies and detailed information. It’s really an instant message meets message board format. Twitter is a great tool for companies to use to interact with their customers in real-time, and to talk about the cool stuff they are doing. Also, with a simple search on Twitter, you can find out what people are saying about your company.
LinkedIn - LinkedIn is a great way for businesses to recruit new talent, and for job seekers to “network” with contacts to find out about job openings or business opportunities. LinkedIn is really an electronic way of networking, using the Internet to gain contacts.
Social media is becoming a mainstream application. If you don’t familiarize yourself with it, your business will fall behind. While it’s easy to start a social media website, you can create a Facebook page in less than 10 minutes, it’s wise to develop a detailed social media strategy first. I will discuss how to develop a social media strategy in Part II of this series.
If you have any technology questions, feel free to contact Lynne Petersen from Frontier Communications at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or log on to www.frontieronline.com.
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