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The Social Media landscape is a very interesting one. It comprises of 10 key elements and all of them can be used, and are being used, to help generate and maintain sales for small to medium sized businesses. In this 7-part blog series, I am going to give an over view of the 7 elements you need to be using as a bare minimum.
- Publish
- Share
- Discuss
- Social Networks
- Microblogging
- Lifestream
- Livecast
The other three, virtual worlds, social games and MMO (or Massively Multiplayer Online game) can also be used, although not essential.
So, let’s keep the focus on the big 7 and help you get your Social Media skills & understanding to a whole new level.
“Social Networks” The Social Media Landscape – Part 4 of 7
Bebo, MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook, there is little doubt that you are a member of at least one of these social networking websites and it is most likely that you spend more time on these sites than any other.
What exactly is “Social Networking”?
Well, you could say Social Networking is a very impersonal way to be personable, but I won’t.
Social Networking is a web-based community for people with similar interests to communicate with one-another.
There are literally millions and millions of people who use Social Networking to organise anything from a game of cards at the library to the biggest 21st party in town. Business people all over the world have cottoned on to the idea of Social Networking and use the wealth of information that each site has to advertise online, research their target market, organise both public events and in-house meetings.
Bebo has been around a while and is home to millions of teenagers who mainly share photos, chat to each other when they are online at the same time and update their public profiles with their latest teenage shenanigans. If, like me, you’re older than 20 then it’s best to steer clear.
MySpace was, and still is to some degree, a key player in the Social Networking market. With some 130+million users, MySpace was the largest social networking website until late 2008. MySpace started out as a home for music lovers and quickly became a popular place to meet and communicate with people from all walks of life. Becoming less popular by the second, I haven’t bothered with a MySpace account and recommend that you keep reading for somewhere to get social online.
LinkedIn is very much a business focused social networking system. There is a lot of focus and information about furthering your career, updating your professional profile and promotes the fact that Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.
I don’t find LinkedIn to be at all user friendly at all. It’s worth having a profile live so people searching for you on there can find you. I find the best thing to do is make sure you have your website and blog links there for them to contact you.
Facebook is clearly the number one Social Networking site today. With over 200 million users, an incredibly user-friendly format and applications (more on these in a tick) coming out it’s ears, Facebook is the place to be.
You can do everything you’d ever imagine a social networking site would be able to. Whether you want to organise an event & invite “friends”, set up a charity and raise money by “recruiting” members, update your status for the world to see or simply have a squizz at your mates photos from the party you couldn’t be at.
When using Facebook for business purposes, it is important to stick to the 5:1 Rule that I talked about in Part 1. Simply posting a whole bunch of affiliate, blog or website links in your status is a) going to piss off your “friends” and b) going to work in the opposite of what you are trying to achieve – no, you will not get more clicks.
How is Social Networking good for business?
Put simply, it allows you to connect and interact with your business partners and customers as well as create new prospects, generate new leads and convert your social networking efforts into sales. Just as your offline marketing plan has a system and rules to follow, online marketing has it’s own system and unique rules to follow.
Note: DO NOT use offline marketing strategies online.
IE: Simply posting a “brochure” online will not create sales as it does in the newspaper.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I could write a month worth of blogs teaching you the ins & outs of Social Networking. Keep an eye out for some video blogs and perhaps a tutorial or two on Social Networking at the end of this 7-part blog series.
So there you have it, some food for thought on the Social Networks element of the Social Media Landscape. Facebook is definitely the key player here – ensure you use it!
Come back for Part 5 – 7 real soon or even better, subscribe to this blog and have the next post emailed to you when I hit “submit”!
Uncovering the Social Media Landscape
