Leveraging Social Networking Sites
By Vanessa Salvia, 6/22/09
A social networking site lets you connect with fellow professionals in your field, build your brand, provide answers and information, and meet the needs of your company, whether it's recruiting employers or simply expanding your number of contacts.
There are a lot of social networking sites out there that you can leverage, but without having a "hub" site to direct all of the activity back to, like your own website or blog, all of the effort can all feel like so many leaves blowing in the wind.
A strong website should be open to traffic from many different streams: organic search, paid online advertisements, and traffic from shared content such as what is found on a social site. Building a strong foundation of on-site optimization and creative content on your primary website and your blog makes it easier to leverage your presence on the social networking sites to flow the traffic back into your main site. Social networking is not primarily a way to make money directly, but a way to guide your expanded audience back to your website, where you can profit from the increased traffic.
Building your own social networking empire includes developing creative content on your main site, of course. Along with that is your Twitter presence, Facebook presence, YouTube video channel, professional profile on LinkedIn, and positive exposure on review sites (like Yelp.com). There are many other online networks where you could establish a web presence.
Starting multiple profiles and groups is easy; it's maintaining and growing them that is the challenge. The top three issues with using a social networking site are attracting people, keeping them engaged, and managing the site. Your success in leveraging the power of a social networking site in your favor relies on lively participation. Following are some tips for driving growth of your online network, as well as some things to avoid.
What To Do
1. First, evaluate what you're already doing. If your company doesn't have a website orblog, then start one. With the far-reaching importance of the Internet today, having a website is a basic need for most businesses, and everything you do online can direct people back to your site. Your web presence can create more awareness of your industry and lead to increased profitability as more people find you. Your web presence can vary in scale from one website and blog to a network of related sites; either way, it's how people find you online.
2. Consider starting a Twitter profile, or create a Facebook group or fan page. If you already utilize these services, make sure they are updated regularly.Before promoting your websites and social media pages, make sure you have developed them and are ready to manage them actively.
Before you start engaging new online services, visit your social marketing locations to practice and spend some time building blog posts and tweets. It's better to develop your voice, get the hang of what you are doing, and then start bringing people there. The worst scenario is to invite people to a dead site or account that is never updated.
Before you begin posting to Twitter ("tweeting"), devise your strategy. First, decide if you want to tweet as a company identity or as an individual representing your company. Do you want to keep your posts focused on a particular topic? Will you post about personal matters, or strictly business? Whatever you choose, devise a profile that makes it clear who you are and what company you represent.
Once you've built your profile, you are ready to begin "following" (subscribing to) other users' posts. Look for people in your industry-there are millions of users from celebrities to CEOs to politicians to every-day people, so there's bound to be someone important to your business to find and follow. Look for other business professionals in your area, news about your industry (Twitter is searchable), etc. Look and see who they are following, to get even more ideas for people to follow.
3. Make yourself easy to find. Use the same name across all of the social sites you use.
4. Increase your linkability. Regardless of how mundane your business
may be, there is always a creative way to encourage people to interact with your brand. Perhaps your company sells paper clips. By working with a programmer, you could create an online Flash game where people could enter a starting point and ending point and estimate how many paper clips it would take to stretch the distance. Or for a less costly approach, encourage your site visitors to submit photos or videos of themselves using paper clips in creative ways.
Before you do this, make a list of the most influential bloggers or spokespeople in your industry. (Are they on Twitter? Even better.) Draft a personal email (or tweet) about your new game or user-generated content page and send it to them. Utilize traditional and multimedia optimized press releases sent to wire services. A little advance work can get you some early links and generate interest before your content is even available.
5. Stay fresh. Continue to create content throughout your site and don't be afraid to try new things. Social media technology and trends change quickly, and your success will depend on continuing to engage users. Aim to add something new a couple of times a week, at least.
6. Make tagging and bookmarking easy. Blogs have plugins that create buttons for all the major social sharing sites.The Sociable plugin, for instance, automatically adds links in the form of graphic buttons to your choice of 99 different social bookmarking sites. Your readers can click on the buttons of the social sites they participate in, and your content is automatically bookmarked and shared with other users of those sites.
Hero-Web (hero-web.com) recently posted an article about this very topic: "Getting Started With Social Media Bookmarking." This article provides a helpful overview of the personalities of some of the popular social bookmarking sites, along with benefits to the ecommerce marketer of using them, and tips for getting the most out of your time to use them.
7. Reward inbound links. Give a thank you to the blogs that link to you, and give a "thumbs up" to the content of the people that give you "thumbs up" on your social sharing sites. Many of the people who use these sites are hoping for some publicity, just like you are. Rewarding their attention keeps everyone happy and makes it easier for them to notice you next time.
8. Vote up content
related to your industry on social sharing sites and offer up your own insights.
9. Participate. Read other blogs and comment on them. Be active in discussions on topics that are important to you. People will remember your name and you will earn a reputation as an active and respected authority. A "nice job" comment is nice, but is unlikely to bring you much attention. Instead, have an opinion. Leave comments that truly add to the discussion.
10. Answer questions. Be
helpful to others. LinkedIn (linkedin.com) is a network intended for professionals, and is increasingly being utilized. The service offers status updates and a question-and-answer page, where you can answer questions and build authority.
Even Twitter is a place where you can develop dialogue. Asking questions creates an opportunity for interaction and conversation, and helps you learn more about the people following you. Ask questions that are answerable within the Twitter format of 140 characters. You might be pleasantly surprised at the number of responses you get-try telling people that you'll post their answers to your questions on your blog.
Beyond the many social networks is the arena of discussion forums. If you are very knowledgeable about a topic or industry, join a discussion group and offer advice. If a forum doesn't exist for what you want to talk about, set one up and moderate it yourself.
11. Add exclusive content. Post videos, photos, or other communication that can't be found anywhere else. Without fresh and interesting content people will be unlikely to want to talk about you, link to you, or share your content. Providing interesting and useful information that your network of friends and colleagues can't find anywhere else will be key to getting a social campaign off the ground.
Also, periodically assess your content. What was fresh, unique and timely three years ago might be quite dated at this point.
What Not to Do
1. Don't Blatantly Self-Promote. The online marketplace is not the place for a full-bore sales pitch. The social network user is more sophisticated, more technologically savvy, and often more advertisement wary. A hard sell will be unlikely to turn them to your direction, and may turn them off completely. Once you make a marketing mistake online, it can be difficult or impossible to erase. So start slow. Get to know the community, be a part of it. See how they react to advertising pitches from other places of business. Contribute something of value to the community before asking them for something in return.
Put simply, people online are looking for something that is interesting and different. That could mean something funny, useful, or charitable. Consistency and reciprocity is the key. Reel them in, then continue to give them what they expect. When there's a give-and-take, people will be more likely to proceed with what you really hope they will do: click over to your website for a sale.
2. Don't moderate everything. Unless you have a staff member whose job it is to moderate content before it is posted, such as videos, blog comments, photos, etc, consider placing less restrictions on what you allow to be instantly posted. People like to add their content because it is instantly gratifying. Having to wait hours or days if you are not available to moderate their contribution is stifling.However, if you find that a lot of junk is being posted, go back to moderating more strictly.
3. Don't ask too much. Allow your social network to grow by not demanding that people provide too much information about themselves in order to join. The more details you expect people to provide to network with you, the more likely they are to give up.
4. Don't be annoying. Twittering incessantly about the weather wherever you are, just to keep your name on people's minds, is bound to backfire. No one wants to be bombarded with useless communication. Keep the chatter to a minimum. Send a message only if it is useful.
Mixing personal information into your communication to help convey a sense of who you are, but it is important that it is done in moderation.
4. Don't expect your network to grow without help from you. The more you put into the network, the more you can expect it to grow.
Summary
Start talking. Social media users will start listening. It's about dialogue, not monologue. It's about creating opportunities for conversation and allowing your users and customers to interact with you. It might take some practice, but your audience will grow for the effort.
A social networking site lets you connect with fellow professionals in your field, build your brand, provide answers and information, and meet the needs of your company, whether it's recruiting employers or simply expanding your number of contacts.
There are a lot of social networking sites out there that you can leverage, but without having a "hub" site to direct all of the activity back to, like your own website or blog, all of the effort can all feel like so many leaves blowing in the wind.
A strong website should be open to traffic from many different streams: organic search, paid online advertisements, and traffic from shared content such as what is found on a social site. Building a strong foundation of on-site optimization and creative content on your primary website and your blog makes it easier to leverage your presence on the social networking sites to flow the traffic back into your main site. Social networking is not primarily a way to make money directly, but a way to guide your expanded audience back to your website, where you can profit from the increased traffic.
Building your own social networking empire includes developing creative content on your main site, of course. Along with that is your Twitter presence, Facebook presence, YouTube video channel, professional profile on LinkedIn, and positive exposure on review sites (like Yelp.com). There are many other online networks where you could establish a web presence.
Starting multiple profiles and groups is easy; it's maintaining and growing them that is the challenge. The top three issues with using a social networking site are attracting people, keeping them engaged, and managing the site. Your success in leveraging the power of a social networking site in your favor relies on lively participation. Following are some tips for driving growth of your online network, as well as some things to avoid.
What To Do
1. First, evaluate what you're already doing. If your company doesn't have a website orblog, then start one. With the far-reaching importance of the Internet today, having a website is a basic need for most businesses, and everything you do online can direct people back to your site. Your web presence can create more awareness of your industry and lead to increased profitability as more people find you. Your web presence can vary in scale from one website and blog to a network of related sites; either way, it's how people find you online.
2. Consider starting a Twitter profile, or create a Facebook group or fan page. If you already utilize these services, make sure they are updated regularly.Before promoting your websites and social media pages, make sure you have developed them and are ready to manage them actively.
Before you start engaging new online services, visit your social marketing locations to practice and spend some time building blog posts and tweets. It's better to develop your voice, get the hang of what you are doing, and then start bringing people there. The worst scenario is to invite people to a dead site or account that is never updated.
Before you begin posting to Twitter ("tweeting"), devise your strategy. First, decide if you want to tweet as a company identity or as an individual representing your company. Do you want to keep your posts focused on a particular topic? Will you post about personal matters, or strictly business? Whatever you choose, devise a profile that makes it clear who you are and what company you represent.
Once you've built your profile, you are ready to begin "following" (subscribing to) other users' posts. Look for people in your industry-there are millions of users from celebrities to CEOs to politicians to every-day people, so there's bound to be someone important to your business to find and follow. Look for other business professionals in your area, news about your industry (Twitter is searchable), etc. Look and see who they are following, to get even more ideas for people to follow.
3. Make yourself easy to find. Use the same name across all of the social sites you use.
4. Increase your linkability. Regardless of how mundane your business
may be, there is always a creative way to encourage people to interact with your brand. Perhaps your company sells paper clips. By working with a programmer, you could create an online Flash game where people could enter a starting point and ending point and estimate how many paper clips it would take to stretch the distance. Or for a less costly approach, encourage your site visitors to submit photos or videos of themselves using paper clips in creative ways. Before you do this, make a list of the most influential bloggers or spokespeople in your industry. (Are they on Twitter? Even better.) Draft a personal email (or tweet) about your new game or user-generated content page and send it to them. Utilize traditional and multimedia optimized press releases sent to wire services. A little advance work can get you some early links and generate interest before your content is even available.
5. Stay fresh. Continue to create content throughout your site and don't be afraid to try new things. Social media technology and trends change quickly, and your success will depend on continuing to engage users. Aim to add something new a couple of times a week, at least.
6. Make tagging and bookmarking easy. Blogs have plugins that create buttons for all the major social sharing sites.The Sociable plugin, for instance, automatically adds links in the form of graphic buttons to your choice of 99 different social bookmarking sites. Your readers can click on the buttons of the social sites they participate in, and your content is automatically bookmarked and shared with other users of those sites.
Hero-Web (hero-web.com) recently posted an article about this very topic: "Getting Started With Social Media Bookmarking." This article provides a helpful overview of the personalities of some of the popular social bookmarking sites, along with benefits to the ecommerce marketer of using them, and tips for getting the most out of your time to use them.
7. Reward inbound links. Give a thank you to the blogs that link to you, and give a "thumbs up" to the content of the people that give you "thumbs up" on your social sharing sites. Many of the people who use these sites are hoping for some publicity, just like you are. Rewarding their attention keeps everyone happy and makes it easier for them to notice you next time.
8. Vote up content
related to your industry on social sharing sites and offer up your own insights. 9. Participate. Read other blogs and comment on them. Be active in discussions on topics that are important to you. People will remember your name and you will earn a reputation as an active and respected authority. A "nice job" comment is nice, but is unlikely to bring you much attention. Instead, have an opinion. Leave comments that truly add to the discussion.
10. Answer questions. Be
helpful to others. LinkedIn (linkedin.com) is a network intended for professionals, and is increasingly being utilized. The service offers status updates and a question-and-answer page, where you can answer questions and build authority. Even Twitter is a place where you can develop dialogue. Asking questions creates an opportunity for interaction and conversation, and helps you learn more about the people following you. Ask questions that are answerable within the Twitter format of 140 characters. You might be pleasantly surprised at the number of responses you get-try telling people that you'll post their answers to your questions on your blog.
Beyond the many social networks is the arena of discussion forums. If you are very knowledgeable about a topic or industry, join a discussion group and offer advice. If a forum doesn't exist for what you want to talk about, set one up and moderate it yourself.
11. Add exclusive content. Post videos, photos, or other communication that can't be found anywhere else. Without fresh and interesting content people will be unlikely to want to talk about you, link to you, or share your content. Providing interesting and useful information that your network of friends and colleagues can't find anywhere else will be key to getting a social campaign off the ground.
Also, periodically assess your content. What was fresh, unique and timely three years ago might be quite dated at this point.
What Not to Do
1. Don't Blatantly Self-Promote. The online marketplace is not the place for a full-bore sales pitch. The social network user is more sophisticated, more technologically savvy, and often more advertisement wary. A hard sell will be unlikely to turn them to your direction, and may turn them off completely. Once you make a marketing mistake online, it can be difficult or impossible to erase. So start slow. Get to know the community, be a part of it. See how they react to advertising pitches from other places of business. Contribute something of value to the community before asking them for something in return.
Put simply, people online are looking for something that is interesting and different. That could mean something funny, useful, or charitable. Consistency and reciprocity is the key. Reel them in, then continue to give them what they expect. When there's a give-and-take, people will be more likely to proceed with what you really hope they will do: click over to your website for a sale.
2. Don't moderate everything. Unless you have a staff member whose job it is to moderate content before it is posted, such as videos, blog comments, photos, etc, consider placing less restrictions on what you allow to be instantly posted. People like to add their content because it is instantly gratifying. Having to wait hours or days if you are not available to moderate their contribution is stifling.However, if you find that a lot of junk is being posted, go back to moderating more strictly.
3. Don't ask too much. Allow your social network to grow by not demanding that people provide too much information about themselves in order to join. The more details you expect people to provide to network with you, the more likely they are to give up.
4. Don't be annoying. Twittering incessantly about the weather wherever you are, just to keep your name on people's minds, is bound to backfire. No one wants to be bombarded with useless communication. Keep the chatter to a minimum. Send a message only if it is useful.
Mixing personal information into your communication to help convey a sense of who you are, but it is important that it is done in moderation.
4. Don't expect your network to grow without help from you. The more you put into the network, the more you can expect it to grow.
Summary
Start talking. Social media users will start listening. It's about dialogue, not monologue. It's about creating opportunities for conversation and allowing your users and customers to interact with you. It might take some practice, but your audience will grow for the effort.
