Facebook
There is a reason this site has more than 250 million active users. There are so many fun applications in Facebook that can easily sidetrack you from day to day responsibilities, and yes, even become addictive. It’s a really great forum to stay connected with people. Needless to say, there are always a few avid “Facebookers” that tend to get carried away. For instance, there is a big difference in sharing your kid’s pictures or a great news story with your Facebook Friends, and letting them know you just finished your morning cup of coffee. Some things people just don’t need to know.
Regardless, Facebook can be used just as much for professional networking as it can be for personal usage. Many of our clients have pages for their businesses on Facebook. They promote their company & services tactfully through this medium. In their personal profiles, they also feature their business with links to the company websites. By doing so, they can promote their business among the people within their own personal profiles, and in turn gain an even larger “Fan” base for their business. Facebook is also a great lead generation tool. We have prospects sent our way continually through connections we have on Facebook. Once you are in Facebook, you will discover even more creative and tactful ways to promote your business, and of course, use it to connect with people you know – from all stages of your life. If you are not on Facebook yet, go ahead and take the plunge, you just may like it.
LinkedIn
In many ways, LinkedIn is similar to Facebook. LinkedIn, while still allowing people to network and stay connected, is geared more towards the Professional audience. It was more popular prior to the current Facebook era. On LinkedIn, you will be able to Network not only with people you know, but with people inside your industry. In this regard, you have a great bank of knowledge & resources at your fingertips, should you need a particular service or if you need help with a particular issue. Another good thing about LinkedIn is it allows you to write recommendations for people you have worked with before and vice versa. It adds validity to an individual’s skill set when you see they come highly recommended. While it may not be as popular as it once was, LinkedIn is still an extremely viable networking site, especially from a business perspective.
YouTube
You have to love a site that will allow you to watch videos ranging from product demonstrations to Barack Obama’s Inaugural address to the now infamous spoof on United Airlines, "United Breaks Guitars”. YouTube’s slogan is “Broadcast Yourself”, but this channel can be used to equally broadcast your business. The hardest part for our clients always seems to be obtaining or creating video content. Those of you that work directly with manufacturers to sell their products, should ask if they have any product video or demonstrations you can post to your YouTube channel. That is one way to start the ball rolling. The good thing about YouTube is that once you upload a video to your YouTube channel, you can easily take a piece of code to incorporate them into your own website. Plus, there are things you can do to optimize video for search. Overall, it’s a win-win situation.
Twitter
Do you Tweet? How many of you know what that actually means? “Tweet” is the term used to describe the action of someone posting an update to their Twitter profile. The site’s main purpose is for you to answer the question “What are you doing”? Answers must be kept short & sweet. You have probably been more exposed to Twitter and “tweeting”” through channels like CNN. All the journalists have their own Twitter accounts, where they may post a new blog topic with a link to the actual blog posting on their website. Celebrities & politicians have also made good use of Twitter to stay in touch with “their people”. If you publish content, like a Blog, the more links you “tweet” on your Twitter page that point to this blog, the higher it will rank organically. This follows the inbound linking principle of achieving high organic rank.
MySpace
To be honest, we are not MySpace fans. MySpace is pretty much the same premise as Facebook. Apologies to any of you who prefer this channel, but we are not going to spend too much time on it. MySpace pages allow you promote yourself a little bit more, in a more upfront manner. I know a lot of bands who use their MySpace pages as their primary website. There is nothing wrong in doing so, as they are able to showcase their music videos or streaming audio files in a fairly straightforward manner. A lot of people will have a MySpace page in addition to their Facebook or LinkedIn pages. It simply boils down to which channel you like the best and does what you need it to. We have also found the content people share on MySpace to be a bit more “cheeky” and sometimes a bit immature. But, you be the judge.
Here are some other prominent social media websites you may, or may not, have heard of. We will cover these in upcoming issues:
