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How to Use Social Media for Business

Written by: Joyce Evans Erb

Article Overview: But it is more than a mere perception of being out of touch. There is constant buzz in your marketplace no matter what industry you’re involved in. A great deal of that buzz is generated, and repeated, via social media platforms. If you are not participating in generating, monitoring and influencing that buzz, you are not only missing out on a great opportunity, you risk being buried by your competitors who know how to finesse the social media system. Social Media for Business is the hottest topic as a means of advertising right now. Top 10 Ways to Use Social Media in Your Organization...

How to Use Social Media for Business

Social media is the new differentiator between organizations that “get it” and organizations that are perceived as being out of touch with the people they serve.

But it is more than a mere perception of being out of touch. There is constant buzz in your marketplace no matter what industry you’re involved in. A great deal of that buzz is generated, and repeated, via social media platforms. If you are not participating in generating, monitoring and influencing that buzz, you are not only missing out on a great opportunity, you risk being buried by your competitors who know how to finesse the social media system. Social Media for Business is the hottest topic as a means of advertising right now.

Successful organizations look to social media solutions to create brand awareness and extend their marketing initiatives and as a two-way communication device between employees, management, and the general public.

Social media is also a big player in corporate reputation management, especially when negative events occur and the organization needs to respond in a down-to-earth believable way.

Social media in business provides a consumer-accepted way to acquire and disseminate organizational information while simultaneously being able to receive near real-time feedback from the people receiving that message.

Large and mid-sized organizations also turn to social media solutions to facilitate inter- and intra-company communications between management and staff.

Top 10 Ways to Use Social Media in Your Organization

1. Put links to the social media services your organization uses on all of your key website pages.

2. Develop blogs (blog marketing) and have your staff engage in meaningful dialog with blog readers.

3. Create web videos of your broadcast media commercials and post them on YouTube and other social media sites. Consider doing the same with your annual report and stockholder meetings if appropriate.

4. Designate someone to learn the ins and outs of tagging and how to utilize tags to raise your online visibility.

5. Create podcasts that focus on the market to which your products or services cater rather than simply on your products or services.

6. Participate in community discussion platforms that are related to the market you serve.

7. Partner with vendors, suppliers and organizations that sell your products or services to form social media platforms and contribute content.

8. Learn how to leverage sites like Twitter to extend your corporate personality to the masses.

9. Repurpose company newsletter articles as blog material.

10. Utilize sentiment measurement tools to analyze your corporate reputation and to track your market’s feelings about you overall.

Don’t Let Social Media Simply Become a Buzzword

In order to reap the benefits of social media marketing, blog marketing and more, it is important to have a social media expert either on-staff or available as an outsourcing partner. Once begun, your social media efforts have to be maintained and extended in order to derive the benefits you seek.

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  Resourcing B2B social media
  Social Media is NOT about Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin
  Legal Marketing: Social Media and Law Firms
  Social Media Gains Momentum for B2B Marketers

Article Tags: annual report, brand awareness, broadcast media, buzz, communication device, company communications, corporate reputation management, differentiator, ins and outs, intra company, marketing initiatives, meaningful dialog, means of advertising, media platforms, media solutions, perception, sized organizations, stockholder meetings, time feedback, youtube
Referred by: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":gvtxsu7g]Hi, I like the idea of "10 items that could act as "social glue" because I am an internet marketer. But I agree with the rest that the 10 recent post is nice. Maybe we should open up a new section in the forums on Social Media...or Social Media Marketing. I will tell you that the world is about 1 1/2 behind when it comes to understanding social media. Building a section now will put EvanCarmichael.com is a great position a year down the road when people realize Social Media can produce more traffic than SEO. Jeff[/quote:gvtxsu7g] Hi Jeff, Thanks for the suggestion. Why don't you start a new post (with a poll) to see if there's enough interest in your idea for a social media section?
Re: UPDATES: New Campaign! New Layout! New Ideas! - GT - thanks for the FYI - I'm not sure if we'll put a link back. Something to consider though! Trent - the new category is "Social Network and Media" which was put in to compliment the Online Businesses category that currently exists. Overall the new categories are: - Looking For, Networking and Events - Review My... - Social Network and Media - Brags and Rants These came as a result of Ringo doing research on other forums and thinking about what could be improved on ours to give a better experience for everyone. I hope you enjoy them! David, I'm looking forward to reading your Brag / Rant!
Re: Marketing 2.0 - What Are Your Thoughts - Hi Shri, Thanks for posting this. I also read it and I believe Social Media is here to stay, until the next best thing comes up. Social media proved to be useful for me many times and I think everyone should use it for their business.
Re: Social Media Marketing Ignorance - [quote="vbn411":7qciluxl]Social Media is space that you have to be in to succeed in our current climate. People are going to be discussing your brand / product whether you like it or not, so you might as well join the conversation and add value. [/quote:7qciluxl] I think that's probably one of the most realistic way to think about it. There's no real textbook way of understanding Social Media, it's the networks of people and their interactions that will exist with or without your input. As for Jennifer, You can always have 2 Facebook pages. Many people do. There is also LinkedIn, which is like a professional networking version of Facebook. The only way to know is to try it.


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