Social Media: The 3 most effective business uses

The 3 most effective business uses of Social Media

It has been estimated by Constant Contact’s Fall Small Business Attitudinal Survey that a new record high of Small businesses plan to devote more resources to social media marketing efforts in 2011.

In the survey, small business owners reported an increased use of social media tools as part of their marketing campaign to meet, retain and bond with customers. They expresses that social media marketing is complementary to other marketing activities. When asked what were the 3 main social media tools that they were using. Blogs were the most used followed close behind by Twitter and then Facebook Like Pages.

According to Technorati.com, there are over 126 million blogs on the Internet. Business blogs are sweeping the business community. Blogs are an excellent method to share a company's expertise, build additional web traffic, and connect with potential customers. They are a way for businesses to make people interested and curious in their business. They cheap alternative that allow small business owners to have a professional web presence that they can update at any stage and interact with customers.

Blogs do have a downside. Blogs do not provide the same functionality of normal web pages and have limits for e-commerce solutions and can be time-consuming to setup. But with minimal costs, it maybe advantageous to start blogging. Is your small business ready for a blog? Click Here to find out.

Twitter is all the rage lately -- and with good reason. and the 150 million or so registered users of Twitter. Twitter offers the ability to connect with a ton of people you normally wouldn't have access to. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. At Twitter, a user will only receive your messages if they become a follower. Using Twitter for business can be an awesome marketing tool. In fact, it can be the most powerful weapon in your entire money-making arsenal--if you know how to wield it.

Facebook is a great tool for your business? Is your company utilizing the new features of Facebook Fan Pages to do social media marketing? If you are not yet leveraging the power of social media to boost your sales or engaging your customers, it is time you seriously take action on this front. At Facebook, a user will only get updates on your company if they opt-in by becoming a fan. More and more companies are using facebook, you’re likely spotting the shift; instead of companies posting their URLs on television commercials, they’re asking their followers to join them on Facebook. Simply stated, for a business, you should create a Fan Page. Want one? Go here. If you are officially representing your company, you’d want to create an Official Page.

And I feel I need to mention LinkedIn although it did not make it into the top three. LinkedIn is a great tool for building a professional network in the virtual world. If you're running a small Web-based or brick-and-mortar business, "knowing" the right people and being able to answer and ask questions significant to your industry is going to help you build your network of contacts. Currently, more than 80 million professionals are on LinkedIn, including executives from all five hundred of the Fortune 500 companies, as well as a wide range of household names in technology, financial services, media, consumer packaged goods, entertainment, and numerous other industries.

Social media marketing should be part of an overall brand awareness and outreach strategy for every small business. The opportunity social media tools afford small business owners to engage their current customers or clients and find new ones is tremendous. Standing apart from the crowd is the name of the game. When you're competing against the rest of the world for clients and market share, you need to be innovative when it comes to getting recognized.

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