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Using Social Media to Promote Your Business

By Rachel Epler

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 02Apr2009 Word count: 807 Viewed: 270 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

Social networking is one of the most exciting new online trends. You've probably heard of sites like MySpace. These sites are places where people can connect, chat, and otherwise relate to each other. But they're also places where savvy marketers can get some exposure for their businesses and grab some free traffic. There are lots of social media sites out there, from social bookmarking sites like Digg.com or Delicious.com to more "meet up" type sites like MySpace. You can probably get traffic from all of them in one way or another, even if some of those sites frown on marketers using them as a traffic source.

However, two sites in particular will let businesses be businesses and jump on the social media trend: - Facebook
- Twitter

Let me give you a quick overview of how to use both.

Facebook: Facebook doesn't really publicize their business side very much, but it's there. You'll find it at http://www.Facebook.com/business:

Facebook lets you create ads that will show up when people are browsing Facebook to connect with their friends. But you'll have to pay for that, either when people click your ads or when the ads show up, up to the limit of your daily budget. The free option is to create a Facebook page for your business.

This is similar to what an individual does when he creates a Facebook page for himself, except you're creating a page for your business. Then people can become a "fan" of your page and tell their friends about it. With over 53 million Facebook users out there, this can be some powerful word-of-mouth advertising. It's easy to create a page for your business, and like I said, it's free. Click the Create a Facebook Page button and you can walk through the very simple page creation wizard. Here are a couple things to keep in mind:
- You don't have to cater to people under 25. The fastest growing Facebook demographic are users 25 and over. These are young (and not so young) professionals. It's not just about kids discussing teen television dramas.
- The key is getting fans. This isn't hard to do. You'll need a personal account at Facebook (it's free too) before you set up your business page. When you set up your page, you'll become its first fan...and your Facebook friends will see a message on their home page that you just became a fan of your business page. They might check it out, tell some of their friends, and then you're off to the races! I would show you a video for this but unfortunately you actually have to create a real business page when you walk through the wizard, and I don't want to create a junk page. Don't worry though, it's a very simple process to create a page, and the Facebook help is pretty good.

Twitter: Twitter admittedly sounds like a silly idea...you sign up for a free account, then other people start "following you" on Twitter, meaning they'll be updated when you make a Twitter post. If you talk about what you're doing in your business, your followers will get updates about your business! Signing up for a Twitter account is simple and free.

Click the Join the conversation! button to sign up. Once you're signed up, all you have to do is sign in and type short messages (140 characters or less) that you want your followers to see. Really, it's that simple. So what's this mean for your business? Simple. It means you can have a bunch of people who get updates about what you're doing, which can include updating your blog, publishing an article to an article bank, and so on. You can include links to your site or blog in your Twitter posts, so people can head right there...and give you free traffic.

As with most social media marketing, the key is getting contacts. In the case of Twitter, that means getting people to follow you on Twitter. Here's a quick way to do it:
- Put an invitation on your blog for people to follow you on Twitter so they can get a quick notification whenever your blog gets updated (that's convenient for them)
- Announce your invitation in forums, on Facebook, or wherever else you can
- Offer helpful information on your blog and update your Twitter followers every time you post. That's all there is to it.

Twitter is really a buzz-building tool. You don't do much direct marketing there (with only 140 characters per message, it's tough to say too much), but keeping people informed can keep your traffic flowing.

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