10/13/12

How to Use Social Media to Increase Your Business Profits

A lot of people are now into online stuff. Regardless of age, people are now registered on different types of social media and networking. This fact is given much consideration by people involved in small and big businesses which is why they come up with websites, social pages, and any more to reach out to their target market. Since social media is not a great hit, a lot of people running different kinds of business use this medium to reach out and distribute their products and services to the public. All of these activities are done simply for one same purpose: to increase business profits.

Social media is initially used for personal expression. A person creates a Facebook account or a personal blog online just to express their disappointments, excitement, feeling of love, and other suppressed emotions. But because the web has become a good place to hang out and vent out, a lot of people are now spending much of their time surfing the net, chatting with friends, and posting statuses and tweets to get attention from other people. These changes and current movements should not be taken for granted by people involved in whatever kinds of businesses. More people means more money and if the net is the place where they should meet halfway, so be it. So as a businessman or a head of a marketing and sales department, what is the ideal thing to do to increase sales? If you opt to use social media, how do you use it to increase business profits? Obviously, you can use social media to become popular. Popularity is the key to become the talk of the town. And once you become one, it’s easier to attract more customers and more customers would mean higher profit. To increase business profits, one should start with a website. Draft a very good content for your site and include it on some relevant search directories online. You can also create Facebook pages or twitter accounts to get more attention from different markets. Creating a YouTube account and posting some attractive yet very informative video is also an ideal way to attract people who are not into words but more into images and presentations. You can also create some blogs that discuss about your products and services to further give your target market a good and clear idea about you and your company. As soon as a lot of people are aware of what things you can offer and how good your company is, it’s easier to satisfy and keep them.

YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and websites are just few of the most talked about social media nowadays. You can make use of these channels or pick some that would best work for you and your business. At the end of the day, it’s all about being popular. When I was in los angeles a web design company gave a real thoughtful presentation on the dangers of relying to much on social media. They said that the ROI on facebook and youtube was typically much lower than search engine marketing – but consumer engagement was richer and more subtle. So choose your marketing spend wisely. Once you get all the attention you need, you will have no way but up.

08/3/12

Using Social Media to Promote the Business

Social Media Magazin—some communication (Flickr.com)

Establishing a presence is what should be done to a business and this can be done efficiently if you have an online presence. Whether your business is the traditional business or you have this online, having a presence on the net will add to this success. If you will note, the biggest brands in business are on the net, and they are doing this even if they have already attained success. Getting popular on the internet will get you a name and a brand that will be exclusively your own. This may not be easy to do though, but there can be no regrets if you do this, especially if you attained the success that you aimed.

If the products that you have are not getting the attraction that these need and you are not getting success, probably because these are not getting known to people. You are not making money out of your products because people do not know that your products exist. Having these online will help in creating awareness, and the social media will be of big help in this regard. If you will note also, the biggest brands are also in the social media even if they are already very popular. The social media is where business can have a live interaction with their clients and customers. This is also where they can get potential feedbacks regarding their products.

The social media is where many people will go to and they do this on a daily basis. The popular social media sites have hundreds of millions of active users, and who knows, you’re present and future customers may be on these social networks also. Being on the social media will give you good chances of actively conversing with your customers, whether these are your present ones or they are potential customers. Creating a fan page on Facebook or having lots of followers on Twitter should be what you aim to do.

Creating a video about your products or your business can also be what you need to do. Posting creative and unique videos on YouTube can be the potential viral video that you need. The biggest brands are also doing this, despite the success they are getting. The social media sites are acknowledged by big businesses to be of big help in their success. They do this to preserve their present stature and also their reputations. If they get negative reviews and comments, the social media can also be the place to help them restore there good reputations back and they can do this very effectively.

Promoting your business through the social media can be a hard task to do. It can also be like having your business promoted through the traditional online methods, which can also be daunting. While you can post ads on Facebook, there are also other ways where you can effectively promote your business through this highly popular social networking site. However, you have to do this just like socializing, because this is what the social media is about. One of main functions of any social media is getting the word out on health issues and guides on social ills such as kidney stones.

07/27/12

Internet and Social Media

Internet and social media, American Red Cross Conference On Use Of Internet S…—ShashiBellamkonda (Flickr.com)

It can be said that most businesses nowadays are already online, and it is not only a case of striving for popularity but to get success. If one will observe, all of the big brands in business are on the web and on the social media sites. This is recognizing the capabilities of the social media to make a business successful, if they are online. Along this line, a business should have an online website that should be informative and useful for all users who are searching for products useful to them. To make your brand well known is possible, and you can do this when your business is online and on the social networks. One byproduct of sitting in front of the machine and surfing the internet is backspasms and the pain associated with that check this out.

If you have products to sell, why not put them on the net, or make these products well known through the social media sites? If your products are not experiencing sales, probably you are just relying on the traditional selling methods. This has limited coverage and on the internet, you will make your products known to a lot of people, more than the number of people who will get to know what your products are, when this is done the traditional way. Get an online site for your business and get social through the social networks, and you will see your business grow.

If your business has no online presence, you will experience only a limited success, especially if your product is still not known. Getting known can be done, especially if you are on the social media sites in the internet. Being on the net and on the social media is creating awareness for the products you have, and it is like saying to the outside world that you have arrived, and your product is here for people to avail. Have a fan page, or be in a group in the social networks and this is creating this awareness, and is just like advertising your brand on the net.

Any kind of product or service can be effectively made known or establish a presence if this is done through the internet. Just make your website content that effective and of the right quality, in order to achieve this purpose. Although it may not be that easy, but you can do it, just like all other people have done it. You can even have possibilities that your contents will go viral and attain this success. Make a video, what is it about your product or your services, and you may get lucky and have viral success on the social media.

The social media is a very good way to become popular in the internet. You can establish your brand here, and make your products or services known and popular. However, there are also things that you have to take care, like if you have already thousands of fans and followers, these people may not be those relevant to your niche. Make efforts to get those relevant ones, to make your efforts that successful. Also make efforts to protect your online reputation, because competition may also make efforts to destroy whatever you have efficiently built.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjSlAzb23OQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

07/17/12

Try Facebook for Marketing Your Business Quick and Easy

It can be very easy to promote your business now, no matter if it is online or offline. You simply need to have an online site that’s informative and very reliable for your customers and clients to visit and go to for orders. Yes, it is so easy to put up a site now and you can easily ask your kid to come up with one but the challenge is on promoting the site. This takes time and a lot of wit to do the trick. Social media is one of the best ways to go when you want to market the site where your products or services are on display for the world to see. Among the leading social media sites, Facebook is the most popular. With over 600 million users to date, you can say that even just a fraction of that volume would mean huge sales for your company. This is true even if only 50% tend to log on to the site every day.

That is why you have you to make your brand known to as many people as possible. The smartest way to do it is to set up tables to peddle your wares in places where there are many people. Of course, these are not just ordinary people but those people who are into the kind of products or services that you are selling.

You should know also that members of the site don’t just check and communicate with their friends and loved ones on the site. They also communicate with large firms and companies that offer different products and services. This means that Facebook can be the best way to deepen your ties with your current customers and also a good way to hook some prospective ones.

Some of the things that you have to consider in promoting your business in Facebook are to set up your own Facebook page, and to create your own Facebook group in the site. The Facebook page is a great means to add more credibility and professional image to your own business. You simply have to work on growing the number of fans for the page. This is like adding more to your customer base. Another good thing to come up with on Facebook is your own Facebook group. In this way you can post a single message about your business for all the customers to learn about it. You also have a convenient way to gain some feedback and comments from your customers. This is indeed a good way to make your business even better and to make sure that you are communicating with your customers all the time.

With Facebook, you can also create various landing pages for your customers. There should be one for new members to like your page while another one is for the old members to know any updates and news regarding your business. This is a good way to keep their interest going for your business, all these done without spending too much.

Here’s a video on how you do Facebook marketing for your business:

05/12/12

How to Market Your Handcrafts Business Online

Crafts business, Australian and Pan-Asian crafts 1 Carrara Market—avlxyz (Flickr.com)

You’ve got crafts to sell, and they’re awesome. How come you’re not making money from them? Chances are, you have not taken advantage of online marketing for your business, and all its accompanying tools.

Let’s say you have a handcrafted jewelry business, and you want to make people aware that it exists. What do you do?

For starters, recognize if there is already an existing market for your kind of business online. If it does, check it out and do a bit of research to see if it is thriving, and if you’re up for a lot of competition. This will help you come up with a unique approach to sell your wares and see the bigger picture as to how long you can sustain your online business.

If you can afford it, buy a domain with your store’s name as the site name. This will give your products instant recall and it will be easier to look for your online store once your jewelry start making a name for themselves. If you can’t afford your own site yet, take advantage of free blogging sites like WordPress to start with. There are a lot of templates you can choose from, and you can tweak the settings to come up with a more personalized and customized look that will go with your wares.

You can customize the site to look like a virtual brochure where clients can pick out the designs they want. Or you can make it look like a virtual tour of your workshop. Add lots of interesting pictures so people can have an idea of what goes on behind your craft. A lot of customers like a bit of history with their finished product, so take advantage of that curiosity. It’s always vital to keep your site update because it will make people aware that you’re always working on something new for them.

If you’re going to be transacting online, bear in mind that you have to be committed to checking out your site regularly because it’s not nice to keep customers waiting for answers. Also, you must have a reliable shipping service that will deliver the goods to clients on time. This will pave the way for satisfied, and hopefully returning, clients who can promote your online business for you without you asking them to!

You can also participate or sign up in an online crafts forum or gallery. Etsy and Multiply are good examples. You can think of them as a virtual crafts bazaar or mall where you can check out other people’s wares. This way, if you aren’t too confident about how to price your products, you can use others’ pricing schemes as a gauge for your own. The beauty of these sites is that your wares can be instantly categorized so anyone looking for hand crafted jewelry has a big likelihood of stumbling upon your stuff.

The downside of this is of course, the competition. While handmade jewelry pieces can be considered one-of-a-kind, the handmade jewelry niche is by no means a unique one.

05/7/12

Creating an Online Buzz for Your Biz

Twitter Tree—pandemia (Flickr.com)

A business that has no online presence may as well pack up and quit being a business. These days, there is no reason for a business owner, even the humblest of start-ups, to NOT use the Internet to raise awareness for a product, service, or idea.

Take social networking sites, for instance. Pages, groups, and accounts are devoted to trying to sell new products and services every day. Since these sites take up a sizable chunk of the average Internet user’s time, it’s safe to predict that putting up a page or account for your business will get the attention of Netizens one way or another. You just have to know the right tools and methods to gain more views, Likes, Followers, and the kind of attention from Netizens long enough to keep them hooked on what you’re selling.

Micro blogging is also a great modern tool to promote your business online. Blogging is, of course, quite awesome in itself, but Twitter is a very effective way to stick to a conversational tone using not more than 140 characters per Tweet so you can make people aware of what you have to offer. The conversational tone part is important…otherwise you run the risk of sounding like an infomercial gone viral.

Speaking of viral, member-submitted videos on Tube sites have pretty much established how effective these online tools are at creating a buzz for just about ANYTHING: events, causes, new programs, products, talent, services, ideologies, etc. Whether the messages are good, bad, uplifting, enlightening, depressing, entertaining, annoying, anger-inducing, informative, or what-have-you, videos have become powerful forms of media to make people sit up and notice. Imagine what they can do for your business.

Then there are the online “malls” like Multiply, eBay, Amazon, and other similar ones which are devoted expressly for online selling. You know you are up against a lot of competition, but if your product or service is truly unique and has the potential to make lives better, then you shouldn’t worry about anything (except, of course, using the proper tools for selling online—more on this later). The beauty of these “virtual stores” is that people can find you easily if your product or service is what they are looking for. You can choose how to categorize what you are selling, and place tags or keywords to refine the search some more.

But the most important virtual tool that can help you promote and sell your product, service, or idea? Constant UPDATES. You may have several online accounts, IDs, forum handles, virtual stores, blogs, videos, etc., but if you don’t update, then you don’t stay relevant. Keep your online presence as dynamic as you would your real life one, and people will notice what you have to offer them.

05/1/12

The Three V’s of Effective New Media Marketing

Any product, idea, or service can become ripe for the picking with the proper use of new media marketing. There are so many ways to get it right…and so many ways to get it wrong, as well. To help you get started, we will discuss the three V’s which can help you on the path to using social media to your advantage, and to get people to notice your product, idea or service.

V #1: Go viral.

Batman Viral marketing 08—KellBailey (Flickr.com)

Memes, viral videos, and other forms of things that get shared to infinity can REALLY help your product, idea, or service get noticed in a major way. Create a buzz for your biz by taking advantage of all that social media sites have to offer. The great thing about these sites is you are no longer bound by geographic and other previously insurmountable limitations. You can reach MORE people by using a free account and creating something memorable with it.

A reminder, though: don’t become a spammy online business person. If you have something great to offer, word of mouth can help you make it known. Avoid spamming people with what you have to offer, or you’ll end up with a product or service people will be eager…to shun.

V #2: Make a video.

You cannot belittle the power of user-submitted videos. So many have proven that the audience for “Tube” sites and other streaming video accounts is huge, and the response to great video clips is almost instantaneous and nothing short of phenomenal. If talents can be discovered on Tube sites and launched into stardom, think of what they can do to your business. You can come up with a creative marketing pitch, or ask loyal and satisfied customers to give you an online testimonial. Either way, the objective is to make your product or service unforgettable.

V #3: Verbalize like crazy.

$A D\'Arcy Inspired History of Blog$

A D'Arcy Inspired History of Blog—cogdogblog (Flickr.com)

If you are excited about what you have to offer and have a LOT to say about your product or service: VERBALIZE it. Start a blog around it and keep it updated. If you are SEO-savvy (more of this in later posts), take advantage of the power of blogging and keywords to keep your product or service in the first pages of top search engines. Be as creative as you can get, and soon people will take notice of what you have to offer.

04/27/12

The Cons of Social Media

A few days ago, we discussed the pros of social media for your business. Today, we will tackle its cons. This video presents many good points worth thinking about to make the most out of social media.

You could have too many followers, but not niche-specific ones. In Twitter, Facebook, and other forms of social media, many people fall into the trap of thinking that thousands of followers, fans, and Likes mean being able to reach a wide audience to be able to promote your product or service. This is not always the case. Bear in mind that plenty of social media accounts are bot-generated or are put up to spam other accounts. Still others might just be “friend”-happy, or are the ones who keep adding other accounts for popularity or even to promote their own products or services! Bottom line is, if you are not careful about the people who follow or add your social media account, you might have to spend more time trying to weed out the useful ones from the potentially annoying (or even harmful) ones.

Your correspondence might get stuck at the virtual level. Let’s face it, people use social media because it’s so easy to “connect” without having to leave the comfort of one’s home. Now, this self-same pro can become a con for your business because you would have to go the extra mile to convince people to meet you in real time. You could sell and promote your product or service online, but in certain businesses like insurance, sales, medicine, etc., demonstrating your product or service face-to-face is a must. If you create too much of an online presence, people might think that is all you are good at.

You could get plagiarized or ripped off. Internet privacy laws are still experiencing birthing pains, so there are a lot of grey areas which can become spring-boards for defamation, libel, slander, plagiarism, and other cases concerning privacy. If you put up something on the Internet for people to see, there is a huge chance that anyone can rip off what you have put up. There are ways to prevent this from happening, like putting watermarks on your images. However, people who are hell-bent on taking advantage of other people’s work will not balk at ripping off something from you, anyway.

TMI online can ruin opportunities for you. TMI, or too much information, has been the bane of many social media users. Posting not-safe-for-work pictures, incriminating information, or a statement which is politically incorrect or offensive, can ruin your reputation even if your product or service is very, very good. So the best advice for you is to post with common sense, and post with caution.

04/21/12

Why Investing in a Membership Website Can Do Your Business Good

Membership Site Development Digital Markteing—Maria Reyes-McDavis (Flickr.com)

If you have a business, you definitely need social media AND a membership website in these fast-paced times. Why? For starters, you can get all the pros of social media as mentioned in the previous post. These include developing your brand, creating a network of contacts, and using automated posts for convenience, just to name a few.

Now, add the investment of a membership website, and you are sure to make money for your business.

Membership websites contribute a unique set of benefits for any business owner, even the most old-fashioned ones who want to literally put up shop and hire a store clerk to oversee things because that’s the way they had been taught by their business mentors.

Yaro Starak is a great example of a business owner who profited from putting up membership websites. He is now considered one of the “internet millionaires”, who started out as an individual blogger and who made over $200,000 in 2007 alone because he focused on instructing people how to set up money-making blogs called Blog Mastermind. He now runs a successful site called Membership Site Mastermind.

Yaro Starak Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett at Prob…—TheCreativePenn (Flickr.com)

It’s great to be inspired by successful people who have done what you want to do, so internet millionaires who followed the lure of social media and other pros of the Internet should be looked up to.

One other thing to consider is how a membership website instantly adds value to your product or service. You cannot just keep promoting your product or service via old-fashioned leaf-letting, TV or radio commercials, posters, and other means requiring a lot of attention, effort, and maintenance.

Putting up a membership website will guarantee that your business will promote itself given the right Internet tools. You only have to maintain your site for updates and check for occasional bugs. Otherwise, you can relax and not run around trying to organize with people and waiting to listen or watch out for your ad, etc.

Some of the best brands out there have websites that are simple to look at, but get a lot of visits and sales from people. You do not have to make your site sleek, hi-tech, and glossy. You simply have to put your brand out there and take advantage of all the help that social media and Internet marketing tools can give to your business.

04/18/12

The Pros of Social Media

Social media pros, Social Media Comic New School vs Old School Market…—seanrnicholson (Flickr.com)

In an article called Social Media Pros and Cons Web Design App Development, the author cites two of the main pros of social media:

“(1) It’s here to STAY so you might as well learn to live with it (what choice do you have right?), and (2) social media has many possible benefits regardless of your attitude towards it.”

Though many have embraced social media in its many forms, some are still reluctant to use it to their advantage despite the obvious benefits it brings. As portrayed in the cartoon above, some business owners still regard the online community as merely virtual, and with no real purchasing and deciding powers. They can not be farther from the truth.

Social media is all about creating relationships and networking. The same can be said of businesses. James Roughton expounds more on the pros of social media in the video below:

Everyday, new sites, blogs, and online sources use newer and newer tools and apps to make social media even more adaptable. It is rapidly changing and always catering to people who want to capitalize on its usefulness in selling products and ideas. Some of the benefits you can get using social media for your business include:

developing your brand
creating a network of contacts
use automated posts for convenience

There are many other advantages, including promoting what you do either professionally or as a hobby (whether you are a craftsman, musician, painter, photographer, etc.) much faster and more efficiently than you would by using traditional promotional tools such as snail mail and the telephone. With today’s inundation of new apps and programs, networking and promotion is quicker than ever.

Social media also allows for real-time exchange of ideas among people you consider your peers, in forums and other sites. This way, there is a constant influx of inspiration for whatever it is you do.

There is a downside to social media, though, as will be discussed in the next entry. The bottomline is, it is good to weigh social media’s pros and cons, and to recognize that it is, indeed, here to stay.

new media wise

modern communications

Internet and Social Media

Try Facebook for Marketing Your Business Quick and Easy

How to Market Your Handcrafts Business Online

Why Investing in a Membership Website Can Do Your Business Good

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