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.
“Publish” The Social Media Landscape – Part 1 of 7
Wikipedia, Blogger, WordPress and Digg are all online systems available for you to use. Each has different features and can be used to create different outcomes.
Publishing online is simply you adding your thoughts, lessons, information or data to a system that is easily assessable to other users, generally people who are interested in what you are publishing.
It is worth noting that 99% of everything you ever publish online is there forever. Well, maybe not quite forever but for a very very very long time and there is no way for you to delete it. So, word of caution, ensure you are happy for everything you publish to be seen by the world forever.
Wikipedia is a free, multilingual encyclopedia that is created by it’s users and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website.
How is this good for business?
It’s about consumer research, rather than generating direct sales.
1/ Ensure your business (or industry) has accurate information posted for the world to see. You would be surprised just how many people “check you out” on Wikipedia before making a decision to buy from you.
2/ Understand your competition. Wikipedia, like the entire social media landscape, is an environment that forces honesty. It’s too easy for customers and staff to share their view on things if your information isn’t up to scratch. You can learn some very interesting details about your competition.
Blogger & WordPress are fantastic blogging platforms. What is blogging and why is it so important?
Blog, short for “web-log” is a type of website, maintained by an individual (or business representative) with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
Blogging is possibly the most important social media avenue for your business. A blog allows your customers to read, view & listen to important information relating to your business. As a rule of thumb, write 5 informational/educational blogs for every “sales pitch” post.
This means you are adding a lot more value to your readers than they are adding to you. Creating this “safe” (non-salesy) environment means your readers will come back and read future blogs.
This post that you are reading right now is a blog. The platform I have chosen for this blog is wordpress, as you can see at the top of the page, this blog is called http://www.adambairdblog.wordpress.com. In the past I have used blogger as well and find both systems very easy to get started and update regularly.
There is no rule how long a blog should be, you can choose.
Digg, like wikipedia, is created by it’s users. It is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. Digg is great for business when you can have your website, article, blog, video or podcast voted for by enough of your fans that it appears in the Top 10 for it’s category.
Why? Because the Digg Top10’s consistently generate an incredible amount of new traffic to that link. Here’s how you can see Digg in action… simply click here and “Digg this” article. (Thanks!)
So there you have it, some food for thought on the Publish element of the Social Media Landscape.
Come back for Part 2 – 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
