Get Friendly With Social Media

By Antrea M Augustin

Get Friendly with social media... Why?

Would you go down to your local mall with your business banner ad and flash it in front of everyone who comes your way?

UHH maybe not. You would be wasting time and money. Social media sites provide a platform to interact with potential customers to generate interest and engagement with your products or services, is also easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Additionally, it serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. As of now Facebook has more than 665 million active users each day. Amazing right??!! Imagine 665 million eyes seeing your message in one day with just the click of a button. But not only Facebook there are lots of social media websites out there including Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, Digg, Tumblr etc.

Social media marketing has taken internet marketing a step further and today many cell phones have social networking capabilities. Mobile phone usage has become beneficial for social media marketing and individuals are notified of any happenings on social media sites through their cell phones. This constant connection means that organizations can constantly remind and update followers about their products, capabilities, uses, importance, etc. Because cell phones are constantly connected to social media network sites, advertisements are always in sight. Facebook says that it had 751 million monthly active users from mobile devices.

You and Your message can be seen by thousands even millions of eyes, and you know what that means, more traffic to your site and more money in your pocket. There are also tools that you can use online that can send your messages to over 50 different social media sites in just a click of a button but we will talk about that in a future blog post, so stay tuned for that. As for now the top three social media sites that i recommend for ease of use, results and level of equestrian use are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

1. Facebok

Facebook has the largest following of any general networking site and it is also the most user friendly. Individuals can create a profile, add information about themselves, join networks example schools and clubs, add photos, videos, testimonials, status updates and links.

This is a great form of viral marketing because once someone has joined your page they can invite their friends to join and share your content with their networks.

2. Twitter

Twitter is a stripped down version of Facebook. It allows it's users to add status updates, consisting of no more than 140 characters called "tweets". Twitter may not be for everyone but for a targeted niche like equestrian businesses, it has lots of potential. They use it to keep people updated on competition dates, new developments and promotions. Do not estimate the power of twitter because it is one of the fastest growing social media networking sites for business to business interactions.

3. YouTube

YouTube allows it's users to view, upload and share video clips and has become an amazing force on the web. YouTube is great for video blogging, demos and showcasing you products and/or services. You can embed YouTube videos into your website. keeping your hosting cost down and enable cross marketing. This applies for social media marketing, the whole idea is to keep your followers updated to ensure that they are kept interested and to attract new followers.

This is where the "BUZZ" occurs around your brand. This can lead to many linking to your site and spreading the word. Making you look like an authority to Google where your content might rank on the first pages of Google, which means more people will click on your links and in turn bring more traffic to your website or content.
Now go get friendly with social media because this might be the best decision to make for your business and for yourself.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Antrea_M_Augustin