Social Networking for business.
This guide is fairly basic in its scope but should be a very good introduction to using the huge social networking sites about for marketing and self promotion. Both free and paid types.
What is a social network - brief overview.
A social network is pretty much what it says on the tin - a network for social activities.
The simplest way to think of a social network is that it is a website that people can log into and send messages and other digital things to each other. Vague but true.
The successful social networks often have thousands of people online at any one time and as such the bills for running a social network can be astronomical.
Advertising to the rescue. Pretty much all the social networks sustain themselves by advertising products to the users of the network.
On the whole these adverts are very rarely from the social network itself. Other people can place adverts on the site for a fee, either by number of clicks, views or a time period. More commonly advertising works on a pay-per-click basis.
Social networks usually have a certain theme or at least have the capacity to allow the users to great groups and therefore multiple themes within the one social network.
These popular groups and social networks are the ones where many people share a common interest or like. Business owners are able to advertise directly to a huge market of people that have already shown interest in their products.
This makes social network sites a very powerful marketing tool.
Facebook. A complicated but very useful marketing tool.
As of 2008 Facebook is the largest of all the social networks. Membership to Facebook is free to anyone and every member has a whole host of options, addons, games and all sorts of applications that they can add to their profile at will and totally customise so each user has their own personal experience.
Users of Facebook can create groups and invite other facebook users to come and join the groups. Many of these groups are absolutely massive and are dedicated to products, celebs, moments in time and just about anything. If you sell it or are interested in it, there is probably a facebook group you can goto and find hundreds of people already interested in it. And facebook provides one of the best targeted marketing opportunities going.
Facebook, to all intents and purposes, created their own advertising system that allows advertisers to specify certain Keywords. Adverts are then placed in corresponding groups so highly targeted audiences get to see them.
If you would like to have a deeper look into these types of adverts the best way is to
go and create one.
You will need a Facebook account but it is free to at least create an advert and read all about how they work and the costs that might be involved.
Twitter. Simple but very effective.
Twitter is one of the fastest growing social networks on the internet today. When users first create a twitter account there is usually a bit of confusion because the interface is so simple. It is very hard to see what use it can be until you really get stuck in.
The theory behind twitter is that you simply post a short comment about something (miniblogging) and other interested people can find it and follow you if they are interested.
So, if you are a SEO and you wish to build up a following of people that may eventually convert into clients then it would be wise to Tweet (as they call it) about useful little tips the layman can understand. This is the right way to ensure you are Tweeting to the right audience. If you tweet about advanced parts of your product, the average layman will not find much use in following you.
On a local basis Twitter can seem to have very few related people. For example I live in a bustling Town called Blackpool but if I search for the word Blackpool I only find less than 50 users. This isn't to say that their are only 50 users in Blackpool, just that their are only 50 users with the word Blackpool in their name.
If you are in a locality of few Tweeters then it is still worth the time to get yourself a profile as it is still growing and looks to become the next household thing. If you are there from the start you have a much better chance of being their when everyone else is boasting how much custom they get from it.
Brief Summary
Above we have covered the basics of only two social networks and we will be updating this article frequently to be more in depthabut more social networks. For not however I hope this has give the non believer something to think about.
Social networks are not just for teenagers to chat to each other any more, they are useful for anyone who wishes to utilize the free and paid tools available on these networks.