The Social Flow
How it all has changed
This day in age hearing the term social networking is nothing new. We are all aware of the tremendous strides social networks such as Facebook, Youtube & Twitter have created for the world in itself. It has quintessentially changed the Internet for the better and created what we thought the world wide web was into what the world wide web is, a network of interlinking content at a centralized point of return. Essentially, it cause’s your social network to be the source of pertinent and relevant news on a daily basis. Whether that news be about a family member or the birth of a famous actresses baby, chances are if your on a social network such as Facebook or Twitter, somebody somewhere is talking about what’s happening in the world.
Your friends are my friends
Facebook as of today has a little over 800 million active users. And of these users on Facebook chances are they come into your store or website on a regular basis and enjoy the products you sell. Facebook is a great retention tool, to keep customers up to date with what your doing with your company, such as renovations, promotions, specials, discounts or just to say hello. The beauty of Facebook for your company is you are creating a network of reachable customers who already like your product enough to want to be a part of your network. So like the very popular Verizon wireless commercials with hundreds of people behind the main actor, those are your people and your message is sent to them as soon as you choose to talk to them. Being social isn’t hard it’s just the messaging we choose to send out that can be difficult for some.
Do you want to constantly send out the same repeated message of “BUY HERE!! BUY NOW!!!” and expect a return from your social networks when you don’t engage well with your network?
Self Promotion is the Best Promotion
In marketing you have to maintain the belief that self promotion is the best promotion, A simple yet not so radical idea. YouTube is a world wide phenomenon that has changed the way we view media and entertainment for ages to come. They have created a simple and very unique concept we can all appreciate in their motto alone “Broadcast Yourself”. By having a social network as unique as YouTube under your company’s belt your opening the doors to video marketing and creating self made commercials for the world to see. Never before were there such open avenues to get your products seen or heard about using the Internet in this capacity. By thinking outside the box and utilizing your current resources, such as current employees you can essentially form a group of participants for a video you would want to put together to promote your company. You would find that most people enjoy being creative and sharing their creative insights, especially if they will be receiving recognition for their work. Make it fun and make it interesting and im more then positive you will receive great feedback and willing participants.
The people search engine
Twitter is unique social network yet its really micro-blogging in real time. It’s far from a Facebook and its no YouTube, It only allows you to post short, quick 140 character messages to your followers or anyone who is searching for what your talking about. It allows you to group specific words by adding hashtag’s (#) to find your tweets later on all in one place. But twitter isn’t just amazing because you can find all your relevant messages in one place, its amazing because its like a real time search engine for new and prospective customers.Imagine a chiropractor doing a search on Twitter for someone talking about “Back Pains”…
If you look at the example below, you will see messages from a number of people with back pains in the Miami area.
Gold to a gold miner is in the mines that he digs, while gold to a business looking to expand into social media is in the quality of its clients and as far as it’s messages reach.
Twitter can help in the acquisition of new customers while finding loyal ones who were there all along, waiting for your services and just having a conversation at times. Having this ability to directly interact with potential or current customers gives you the advantage, like grabbing the social bull by the horns. Instead of waiting for you customers to find you and reach out to you, you reach out to them in their time of need or just at the perfect time of that interest.
Twitter is also an amazing tool to use to help achieve visibility on a product, video or website. By using Twitter to push your website links, YouTube videos or Facebook page fan growth, your potential at using this people network will expand your visibility exponentially.
The Social Flow
The problem most company’s have is finding a personality to fit their company’s online presence, and this can prove to be difficult for some but easy for others. Being social isn’t easy, especially when the voice you are defining is that of your company’s, But this, shouldn’t be a deterrent. Remember you are a unique content hub for your clients and current and future fan base, you provide the content flow that gets channeled through your feeds. If you chose to provide sports updates to your fans, that would be perfectly fine, even if your company didn’t sell those products. The reason this is a valuable concept is because your clients,customers and fans are interested in more then one thing, they enjoy many things!! And in order to promote engagement on your pages and have people talking about your product, its beneficial to filter engaging topics through your feed to have your page more active and recognizable.
