It’s all too easy to waste time, money and energy following a social media strategy that isn’t targeting your core users or isn’t of benefit to them when you do. In fact, when we speak at conferences, business owners and marketers #1 concern is simply how to make time for social media on top of all their other responsibilities. Direct Online Marketing™ can tailor a social media solution that will benefit both your business and your customers.
Top Social Media Platforms
Not all social media platforms are right for all organizations’ marketing plans. Some smaller niche sites might be worthwhile depending on the industry as well, but the following are the largest and most active players that should be considered when thinking about social media marketing:
- facebook. The largest player in the game, they currently boast 600 million active users. Their progression has been fascinating, going from a site that was essentially a private network to an open platform with more active users than any country in the world not named China or India.
LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the #1 social media property for professionals with over 100 million users (as of March 2011). It can be a great site for finding work, finding employees, networking, and establishing expertise. Follow Direct Online Marketing™ on LinkedIn.- twitter. Twitter seemingly exploded out of nowhere to become a social media platform with over 200 million users (although the number of active users hovers around the 50 million mark, depending on how you define “active”). It’s a great way to announce news, find out information, and add fresh content to your Web site. Some retailers have also found success using classic coupon and promotion strategies, such as promoted tweets.
- foursquare. The newest – although several years old – of the properties listed here, foursquare is a geo-mobile-social site that combines a user experience of Google Maps / Places with twitter and some additional features. If you’re in a large metropolitan area and run a restaurant or other retail establishment where you can entice patrons with specials, foursquare may be a great way to add business. Foursquare is currently in a stage where it is popular with techno-enthusiasts; it remains to be seen whether the masses will follow as they did with twitter, or whether it will fizzle out / get consumed by a major player like Microsoft of facebook or Google. You can see us on foursquare, but not much to do there, so it will probably just bore you.
And the above doesn’t even count many of the ways that Google is involved in social media that are worth a look. While they’ve been noted for some issues for penetrating the SM space, you won’t want to sleep on YouTube (a proven winner in many industries) and hotpot – a local rating service overlay to Google Places that we’re pretty excited about. This may even tie in eventually to Buzz or other as-of-yet unreleased social media efforts in the work.
Social Media Marketing Resources
There are many ways to use social media marketing to your advantage. Typically, we focus on long-term approaches to improving search rankings and reputations; building brands; and establishing expertise. However, as this medium evolves, new advertising options such as facebook Ads and LinkedIn DirectAds become refined and can potentially be useful as part of a paid media strategy.
To learn more about social media and the services we offer, please use the following resources in this section and throughout our Web site:
- Benefits of Social Media. Learn why many organizations are using social media and how they’re making these campaigns work.
- Our Social Media Services. Our major services include online reputation management, social media optimization, and WordPress customization.
- The Found Blog. Our blog features news and insights on the world of social media and search engine marketing and how to get more out of your campaigns.
Follow Us
Like us on facebook for automatic blog updates and tips on the world of social media and search. We also occasionally run some contests for cool giveaways.
If you’re on twitter and want to learn more about search and social (and hear rants about American baseball and British football), you can follow those of us tweeting away:
YouTube
Check out our YouTube channel for official Direct Online Marketing videos. Sometimes it’s easier to understand how to utilize the search engines – and what changes across the Web really mean – when you can watch along with a narrator. We’re working to add more content, so if you have questions you’d like to see addressed, please let us know.
Discuss Your Social Media Goals
To learn more about our social media service offerings and how we can help you, call 800.979.3177 or click here. We’re happy to discuss your goals, individual social media properties, and how you can make time for it all.
