Everyone knows that Social Media rules the internet. Facebook is leading the way, Twitter, LinkedIn just went public, Yelp…etc. But, have you thought about how all these can help your company? Or if people will eventually get tired of the whole “Social Media” thing, and will go back to pre-social media internet? Nothing is for certain, but the sheer number of people who have Facebook accounts is staggering. As of this writing: Over 500 million users on Facebook, over 70 billion minutes per month spent on Facebook by its users. (source Facebook Statistics:http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics)
Social Networking by jscreationzs
The average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages. Is one of them your page? 10,000 new web sites integrate with Facebook everyday. If your business is not yet involved in Social Media, you are missing a huge opportunity. The Gourmet food trucks that are all the rage in Los Angeles, for example, send out Tweets as to where they are going to be, and also send out Tweets with discounts for their followers. Why follow a celebrity? We will leave that up to your preference. Why follow a business such a food truck? Because they will give you discounts and tell you where they are going to be.
Some companies are using Social Media in very clever ways such as asking their fans to post a comment about their company on the fan’s own “wall”, and then “tagging” that business. Once the business has been tagged, they are notified, and they can select the fan who will receive a prize for tagging them and therefore, promoting them on user’s own wall. It gets the business’ name out there for a minimal cost. The effects of this cross advertising platform have not been measured, but any avid Facebook user has probably found out about many new businesses in their area from seeing them in Facebook postings.
Like Button by Master Isolated Images
We at Global Messaging do a bi-weekly raffle for all our Facebook fans and we give away movie passes or Lunch Platters delivered to the office of the raffle winner. That is our way of saying “Thank you for being our fan”. This gives people an incentive to click “Like”. As a result, anytime we post something, it appears on their wall.
LinkedIn is great for building business connections and it keeps growing daily. It just went public and many people who are not Facebook users are in LinkedIn because they find it useful and not a huge waste of time, as many view Facebook and Twitter. We believe LinkedIn will keep growing and you may have already been asked to join someone’s network, even if you do not have an account with LinkedIn.
Finally there is Yelp. This may be the truest form of freedom of expression and power to the people of the internet. If you are running a business and have not yet looked up your company on Yelp, you may want to do that right away. Yelp is the place where consumers become “critics” and if they love your business, they will say it and if they hate it, they will say it as well. If you see a business with many bad reviews on yelp, you may want to stay away. This is people helping people and all this information is free and at your finger tips. If your company is not yet or not very involved in Social Media, you may want to consider it. The costs are very low, and the returns if your strategy is done correctly, can be amazing. If you are a movie fan, we encourage you to visit our Facebook page and become a fan. You may just win movie passes. Winners are announced every 2 weeks and we do make several postings announcing the winners. We look forward to seeing your Facebook page and perhaps some clever Twitter Marketing.
