The Tools
Facebook is the most popular social network today. Friends, family, schoolmates, and colleagues become “friends” on Facebook. This is an online community where users display information (personal and professional), photos and current status for everyone in their approved community to see. Businesses can post a “fan page” for their business, and Facebook users can become fans of that page. This forum allows businesses to update their loyal friends and customers of whatever is new and exciting within their world. What started out as a college experiment for connecting Harvard schoolmates has now reached #1 status, and Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is women over 55.
Although Facebook has more users, with a Twitter account, a person or company has the potential of reaching a much larger community in a shorter amount of time. We like to think of Twitter as your own personal news feed. Some people post a new tweet (an article in this scenario) once per week while turbo users post multiple times per hour. Other Twitter users may find your tweets interesting and they can follow you. These people then become your “followers”, and they will be updated everytime you tweet something new. Twitter followers are more than your friends an family; you will most likely never meet the vast majority of your followers. However, building a community of people who are interested in whatever your talking about is a great way to build credibility for potential customer-base, a job opportunity or even just a for intellectual conversation.
We like to think of LinkedIn as an interactive business card. Here, you add “contacts” which can be colleagues, friends, past schoolmates and family. LinkedIn is used for business purposes to update the community of professional moves and to contact individuals with job opportunities. Companies post their information on LinkedIn for a variety of reasons including attracting future employees.
YouTube
More people watch videos online than take part in any other sort of social networking. With YouTube locking itself in as the #1 video sharing website, it’s no surprise that companies are finding ways to incorporate video media into their marketing strategy. From commercials and product tutorials to viral videos, there are numerous ways for companies to get involved with the online video community. At JSN, we have in-house staff who will film and edit quality videos to assure you’re campaign is strategic and successful.
Blogs
When utilized efficiently, social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn (to name a few) will drive traffic back to your blog. Blogs started out as a sort of online journal. Now, they are used for communicating all types of information in article format to users across the Internet. On the Internet, content is king. There may be thousands of websites about wine, but there are only a few key players who have gained the trust of wine connoisseurs to provide the information they desire. For that reason, these websites will thrive while others faultier. If you build it, they will come. However, if you use Twitter and Facebook to tell everyone about it, they’ll come more quickly.
eNewsletter
Our main source of communication is email. Therefore, it’s easy to understand why companies want to send information directly to someone’s email inbox. Some companies send eNewsletters out quarterly to inform their public about company updates and events. Many companies provide a monthly eNewsletter ot their substribers which highlights their most recent blog posts. Most of the time, the monthly eNewsletter will include something that can’t be found on the corporate blog or website. Whether it’s a top 10 tips list or a coupon for services, you want subscribers to find value in receiving your eNewsletter. This is a great way to remind others that your company exists and that you’re doing great things. Even if they don’t need your services now, maybe they will a year from now.
