Blog Category: social networking

Which social networks are good for what industries?

26 September 2012

Online businesses in general can benefit from social networking sites, and if these are used correctly it can mean a lot of extra revenue from customers you would not normally have reached. There are many advantages to using these marketing platforms and this includes free advertising, building a solid customer base, establishing your own branding and gaining valuable industry contacts.

There are many social networks available these days, so finding the right platform for your business is obviously something that needs to be investigated thoroughly. If you supply industrial equipment there is little chance of your business expanding into other countries or areas if you choose a social network like Facebook to market your products.

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Should you or shouldn't you have social media badges on your site?

23 July 2012

If you’ve happened to watch a television show in the past ten years, you may have noticed a new trend. Instead of allowing the commercials to do all the advertising, networks have really taken advantage of the wider viewer angle provided by flat-screen TVs, and they have started putting advertisements in the corners of programs as they run. These advertisements are small and nonintrusive. Often you will find that a lot of these advertisements deal with social media on the internet, like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube.

The point of that recent TV history lesson was this: Social media badges have become so popular that they can be found practically anywhere. Using them on your website is the obvious evolution of online business.

Of course, some people are planning on operating serious businesses and believe that having these social media buttons displayed on the site will give it too much of a childlike look and feel. However, research shows that the most successful brands out there today have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. So it’s not like social media is this phase that today’s kids are going through. It’s an advertiser’s dream when you really think about it.

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How to use Facebook timeline effectively for your business pages

20 July 2012

There was recently a lot of hubbub in the advertising world when Facebook decided the change the layout of their page. They went from a pretty standard format, where ads and personal content and other features all fit the basic screen, to a literal vertical timeline running down the center of the page. Facebook’s Timeline feature has since changed minds. Advertisers started spending more money. Ads displayed in this format proved to be more reliable. Pages began receiving more views. And the trust of the advertisers witnessed a huge uptick.

How does any of this relate to you? It’s simple. If you are planning on using Facebook and are planning on creating an effective business page or a fan page, you will need to know how to effectively use Timeline to your advantage.

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How do you manage your online reputation?

18 June 2012

As you begin to get into the flow of online business, you will find that the process is just beginning. Now that you have established your business, you have to begin to establish your brand. Your brand needs to stay intact and it needs to be seen in a positive fashion over the entire duration of your business. It’s up to you to take the steps necessary to promote your brand.
Letting your brand management lapse can result in some really bad things circulating about your brand. Before you know it, you may be dealing with a destroyed online reputation. If this happens. You’re not going to recover from it.

5 Ways to Handle Your Reputation Online

1: Promote the Positive

Always promote any positive goings-on with your business. Be the person who is sending out press releases. Update your Timeline with certain milestones. Update your site with great updates that illustrate just how well your brand is doing and how satisfied your customers are. Be 100% positive and promote a happy image.

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What is Klout and how do you use it to understand your social presence?

15 June 2012

Not only is today’s net filled to the brim with tons of different social networking sites, like Digg and Twitter and Facebook and so on, but you can also find many different sites out there that can give you statistics as to how successful your overall social media presence is. Just as you can find many different sites to tell you what kind of traffic you’re receiving for your main website, you can get important information as to your social presence. This information is quite invaluable if you’re using social media to build your brand.

The main site people use for this purpose is Klout. So, it’s important that people understand exactly what the site is and what it does before they attempt to use it as any barometer for their overall social presence.

Defining Klout and What it Is

Operating as an online tool to measure your business’s social media influence, Klout uses a complicated algorithm to gauge your effectiveness. Things taken into account include categories like Amplification, True Reach, and your Network Impact. For Amplification in particular, you’re looking at how engaged and how motivated your followers are on your social media sites. Obviously, this is the most important chunk of data in the criterion, and thus having a few engaged followers gives you more clout than having a lot of followers who aren’t engaged at all.

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Top 5 ways to destroy your Twitter credibility

21 March 2012

Although it’s only a few years on the scene, Twitter is a massive social media network that practically everyone with a mobile device uses. From famous celebrities and politicians to the average plumber and stay-at-home mom, sending out a tweet has become as addictive as cigarettes in some circles. With so many active users, of course, Twitter is a marketing metropolis that any skilled individual can take full advantage of.

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Which are the second tier social media networks to look at using for your business

17 February 2012

Everyone knows that to promote an online business you need to make use of social networks like Facebook. But second tier networks, as they are called, can play an important role in marketing to a niche. Unless your website has wide-ranging global appeal across all demographics, you’re going to want to look at more specialized networks to promote your brand and your ideas.

What makes a network “second tier”?

Second-tier can mean a number of things, but generally it means “less popular” than Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Even Google+ counts as second tier, as it’s generally more interest-specific. Second tier social media networks are places where you can access an audience that is more specialized, and more interested in what you have to say - if you do it right.

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What are lists in Twitter and why are they useful?

13 February 2012

Twitter unveiled its long-awaited lists functionality in 2009, and this has given both private and business users much greater power over how to organise information on the popular microblogging service. As a business owner, you’re probably wondering how you can turn Twitter lists into money. While their application is more useful for personal feed organization, you can use (read: abuse) lists to improve your visibility on Twitter.

What are lists?

Lists, in a nutshell, are “groups” of feeds. You can follow a list without following all of the people on it, which makes it easy to get a snapshot of what people in a certain industry are all talking about at one time without suffering information overload. You can keep your friends and your competitors separate, and it makes it easier to sift out context-specific information. Lists can be formed according to the people you follow, or topics that people are talking about.

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A few things to consider when you are starting a Facebook advertising campaign

06 February 2012

Facebook ads are a great way to drive traffic to a page, or even to your website - though the clicks are quite expensive, so you had better be sure your landing page converts well. We’ll assume you’re trying to drive traffic to a Facebook fan page or get people to “like” something or share something on Facebook.

The Difference Between Facebook Ads and Adwords

Facebook ads, while seeming very similar to Google Adwords, are most definitely a different thing all together. For one, they’re much less intelligent, and much less keyword-based. They’re also far more expensive than Google ads if you’re trying to use them in the same way (around $1 a click).

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5 ways you can improve your LinkedIn profile

27 January 2012

LinkedIn is a great way to market yourself as a professional. It’s not much use for a business as a whole, but if you’re a freelancer, contractor or independent consultant it’s one of the most important digital business cards you can have, and you neglect it at your peril. Despite being around for a while, I’m amazed at how some people just fail at using their LinkedIn profiles to sell themselves.

Before I make a list, there’s just one thing I want to say about LinkedIn - it is not Facebook. That means that Facebook rules and customs do not apply. You want to be connected to everyone you’ve ever met, and everyone they’ve ever met - because you never know when one of those connections will turn into a business opportunity.

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How can Twitter be useful for businesses?

23 January 2012

Twitter is undoubtedly a useful tool for promoting just about any business, but it’s application needs to be properly understood in the context of your business. Here are a few tips for using Twitter to promote your business.

1.Don’t underestimate Twitter’s usefulness

If you are in an extremely specialized niche market, don’t expect to suddenly have thousands of Twitter followers. Rather focus on entering the circles that are relevant to your business. Identify “power tweeters” in your area, and engage with them. Tweet at them, mention them, etc. Find trending topics relevant to your area and participate in these discussions.

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What is social bookmarking and what is it for?

13 January 2012

social bookmarking is the practice of posting links to articles and web pages to various “link aggregator” or social bookmark sites, such as Digg, Stumbleupon and so on. Social bookmarking sites rise and fall in popularity fairly quickly, but they generally have a few common features:

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What is Twitter seeding and what is it for?

11 January 2012

“Seeding” is the practice of carefully distributing content online through various channels, in the hope that it will become “viral” and be spread of its own accord. If this content is an advertising campaign cleverly disguised as a joke or some other kind of content that is noteworthy, the company that created it can reap huge benefits.

Twitter is uniquely suited to seeding viral content, because of its unique “trending” feature. A trending topic on Twitter can be seen by everyone - not just the people in your immediate network. This means that all you have to do to get tweets about your “topic” (for lack of a better word) seen by millions of people is reach a critical mass where that topic begins to “trend”.

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How to use Fiverr to create a cheap and cheerful Twitter background

15 July 2011

Fiverr is a great website where people can share ideas and ways of doing things on the Internet for a nominal amount of money. The offers you find on the site are helpful, fun and some quite extraordinary things, the list is almost endless. This includes how to create a cheap and cheerful background for your Twitter page.

There are some great ideas which are very simple to get hold of by just contacting the person who is willing to sell you the background they have on offer. Many of the backgrounds are done in Photoshop CS4 so the quality of the images is usually very good.

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Search Engine Optimization optimizing for MSN search

25 March 2011

MSN commands almost 15% of all searches although some sources believe that the figure is somewhat less than this. It does however have a loyal audience which is unique to it. This fact is often ignored by many SEO specialists who tend to lean towards Google or Yahoo!

But if a serious SEO campaign is planned then MSN cannot be ignored as it has less competition to cope with. Rankings will be higher using less popular keywords because of this fact. Traffic to a site may benefit from enough visitors to make it a worthwhile option.

The same common rules when optimizing with MSN as with other search engines, in order to gain a higher rank with a search engine and it can be reasoned that if a site ranks well in either Google or Yahoo!, it will rank just as well in MSN. But the opposite, sadly is not the case making it vital to keep an eye on Google ranking at all times.

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9 Tips To Making the Most of Your Exposure on LinkedIn

20 September 2010

1. Have a profile that has lots of SEO keywords

There are over a billion people searches a year on LinkedIn. This means they are searching for keywords, different types of people, positions, and brands. Your profile should be littered with keywords that relate to you and your business. These keywords should be the ones that search for to find you. They should range from broad to highly specific and targeted. A good place to put these besides your bio is in the Specialties category.

Think in terms of SEO here, content is King. The more keywords you have the better chances you have of being found. This goes for an internet search as well as a LinkedIn search. Beyond getting you more visibility on LinkedIN it will also get more click through traffic from the internet.

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The Advantages of Social Networking

03 September 2010

There have been countless trends popping up and subsiding on the Internet since it first broke out in a big way during the mid 1990s. Truthfully, it's hard to recall everything that didn't quite pan out. We're just so inundated with viral and digital these days that it's really hard to believe anything else existed before, and social networking has been the new king for a few years.

Social networking is used by millions upon millions of people around the world. Sites like FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, Linkedin, Hubpages and hundreds more have made it so everyone, whether a regular Joe looking to connect with other people or a businessperson looking for customers, can use these sites to market themselves.

The advantages of using social networking are numerous. It would take a full length novel to fully describe just how essential social networking can be to your Internet business. So, to keep it short, we'll just cover a few of the genre's most flattering aspects and how they can relate to big business on your end.

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Social Networking And Other Keys To Online Business Success

07 July 2010

When you think of home business opportunities, you may immediately get a picture in your head of an envelope licking scam or a pyramid scheme. These ideas sell in huge numbers under the false premise that there's a magic formula to making money online. Well, there are surely ways to make money via the Internet, but there's certainly no magic involved.

In order to create a successful online business, you basically have to make your own opportunity. Everyone wishes that there was some golden opportunity out there, where you could double-click your mouse and have cash flow into your PayPal account it just doesn't work like that.

The brutal truth about the Internet situation is that the real opportunities haven't changed much at all. The best business ideas today have been the best business ideas for nearly a decade. The only real factor that's changed now is the marketing possibilities via social networking giants like Digg, HubPages, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.

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Networking 101 for Beginners

02 July 2010

Networking has been through a lot of ups and downs over the past few decades. Before the Internet came along and took business to an entirely new level, networking was catching a lot of grief from people who couldn't find success. They would toss out business cards at random, buy advertising space for inferior products, and expect to become rich in their respective market.

Most failed drastically and opened the door for more qualified contenders. These beginning networkers insisted that networking was a wasted effort. However, the Internet has changed that completely. Now, essentially, you cannot operate a successful business without networking.

Networking is not all about advertising your product. That's the first mistake people make. Networking is more about getting your name out there, meeting people, making connections, and tapping into markets using both your person and your business.

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