Did you know that social media locations have become the number one place for people to spend their time online? As people find staying in touch a more and more enjoyable experience and a better place to hang out than in front of the television most businesses have wised up, got themselves a website and payment gateways and started to try to build a social bridge to their customers.
Big companies will have the budgets to attack every social network they can find and draw all their customers on there too. But for a smaller company they may have a limited amount of money to spend on social marketing and may be forced to choose a couple, or even just one network to address.
Here is an outline of some of the big social networking sites and whether you should pick them as your social network of choice or not.
Twitter is a micro blogging site that limits users to small amounts of text to make their point. While this may not sound like an ideal way to get your carefully worded marketing message across it has become a medium which holds a lot of weight. If you can get enough people following your twitter feed you will have a lot of people with eyeballs on your message that could potentially buy something or even send your message on to someone that they think will. In essence get the mob to do your marketing for you in a highly targeted way.
Facebook is the biggest social network which has infiltrated the lives of billions and is a rapidly expanding place for businesses to meet face to face with their customers. The main problem Facebook faces is that people don’t really go on Facebook to buy things; they go on to hang out with friends. What you can do with Facebook is incorporate it into your website. Giving your visitors the chance to see what their friends think of your products at a glance may well sway their opinion. Plus, you can encourage people to become ‘friends’ with you on Facebook using incentive schemes that builds your network of followers and increases your chance of sales.
Google Me?
One massive company which has been dipping its toe in the social media waters for the last few years is Google. They have tried and failed before to launch social services but as yet they have not worked, allowing Facebook and Twitter to get where they are. However, if Google does succeed one day, their already established place as an organic and paid advertising medium may mean it will be the best network for you to be a part of.
Getting socially active with your business is reaching the stage where it is practically as important a prerequisite of being successful online as employing a good payment service provider. Basically get out there and get interacting with millions of potential customers. It only takes a few minutes.
