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Be
Sociable: Increasing online traffic through social media marketing.
So
what do we mean by social media? As the Internet has evolved
increasing numbers of people have taken to sharing ideas,
opinions and experiences through a combination of text, blogs,
audio, video and message boards etc. More recently RSS and
podcasts have also captured the imagination of many in their
lust to get their message out to a wide audience. Social media
has lead to a revolution in the way many people now interact
and learn about world events. The repercussions are that the
views of media giants are no longer taken for granted. Now
almost anyone can put forward their perspective on any issue
they wish. Some organisations have been quick to catch on
and realise how their products or services can be promoted
by this phenomenon, a kind of social marketing mix unlike
anything which as gone before.
One of the simplest ways to begin social media marketing is
by creating your own MySpace page. MySpace offers anyone the
option to build a free web page where you can share your ideas
or express your views in a particular topic. By inviting friends
who share similar interests it's possible to quickly build
a cult like community while covertly linking them to your
own website.
The social web revolves around sharing opinions…..be
they good or bad. With this in mind, websites that are packed
full of content can lever recommendations from readers in
the form of bookmarking. Bookmarking has become popular with
some web users who'll share their lists with others who have
a common interest. Assuming your website has some decent content,
bookmarking sites such as Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us and
Reddit provide downloadable code and links etc that'll soon
get you stated. A wise alternative is to link up to AddThis.com,
which will then save you alienating those with a bookmarking
preference by giving access to numerous bookmarking sites
in one go.
A great method of keeping users up to date with your content
is to set up a RSS feed. Otherwise known as Really Simple
Syndication or Rich Site Syndication, RSS provides a notification
to users that new content has been added to your site thereby
keeping your visitors up to speed with new developments or
product launches and so on.
Enabling people to communicate directly through your website
is at the core of social media and forums can be a great way
of providing just that. The best forums are well managed but
not overly censored. Both good and bad comments should be
encouraged. While it's easy to assume that bad comments are
best filtered out, leaving them in gives the forum greater
credibility. A well managed forum provides an excellent, not
to mention free, means of gathering customer feedback and
carrying out market research etc. To give a forum momentum
you may need to regularly stimulate discussion by starting
new topics and by spending some regular time weeding out the
spam and nonsense.
Showing your expertise through video is a clever way of grabbing
an audience. Sometimes the only real way to demonstrate something
is in a visual form. If you are dealing with something computerised
it could be worth considering using screen capture software
where you can easily take people through a lifelike demo.
Video can be downloaded from your own website or posted on
sites like YouTube for instance. Its always good to stamp
your video with you website address so people know where it
originated from. If your video impresses people they may want
to seek you out. In much the same way still photographs, graphics
and audio can be posted to websites; again not forgetting
some kind of link back to your own website.
Lastly but by no means least you can get social media savvy
by creating a blog. In essence blogs are little more than
short articles often centred on current affairs, similar to
writing a column for a newspaper. If you set up a blog it
requires regular updating. Much like running a forum people
expect blogs to evolve preferably on a daily basis. The biggest
no no is to be lame on updates as any audience you've gained
will soon be lost.
This
article is free to republish provided the resource information
below remains intact.
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