When it comes to online business services, did you know that according to our friends at econsultancy.com, social network interaction and blog reading represent the fourth most popular online activities, beating out personal e-mail. As much as 10% of all the time spent on the Internet is spent on social media sites! Search engine giant Bing recently published its top 10 world trends for the year and social media heavyweight newbie Twitter came in second place overall. This just goes to show the sheer level of interest in social media and in this case, the new boy on the block Twitter. We have already indicated that Facebook is essential and we suggest that you must pro-actively figure in Twitter to your lives as well.
Twitter really occupies its own niche and is essentially a micro-blogging engine. Pretty much everyone now knows that you can send status messages of up to 140 characters through Twitter and this has really caught the interest of the business world. It is possible to notify clients about special deals, to handle customer relationship matters and to exhibit a sense of visibility that was previously unheard-of.
You need to think quite creatively about your Twitter presence and understand that innovation will help. Those who are serious about this medium create a targeted background design rather than the generic offering, set up their profiles and links correctly and really consider how to build followers. It is possible to accurately target followers (using keyword research and other tools) who have a vested interest in your particular niche. This, like Facebook, requires regular maintenance and management for best effect. You should allocate time, ideally again on a daily basis, to create meaningful messages, a.k.a. tweets, and interact with others through direct messages. Note that the vast majority of members, corporate or otherwise, do not meaningfully interact through this medium and are certainly missing out. You should aim to be one of the educated few, who really take advantage of what this fantastic medium has to offer.
The world of Internet marketing is obviously dynamic, but it has changed almost beyond recognition in the last few years. Web 2.0 heralded the arrival of the social media revolution and this changed the very mindset of marketers online. These days you must put every effort you can into making a good name for yourself through a subtle and more considered approach, branding yourself as expert in the field. It is never advisable to try and hard-sell on Facebook and Twitter or other social media channels, and you should be very careful! It is highly recommended that you maintain a blog in addition to your main sales site. You can certainly link them and you can even create a subdomain within your website development to actually host your blog, but you should maintain an element of separation.
Consider your core operation. Education is critical as you expose your products or services to prospects. You may know how great your offerings are and may be convinced that they represent a great bargain for people out there in the real world. It’s your job to brand your organisation as the expert in its field. A blog is so important and must be well-designed, thought out and presented professionally. Generally, website development platforms such as WordPress are invaluable here, or you could choose to set up a content management system to start off with.
Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, an accomplished Executive Virtual Assistant Service which helps companies of all sizes reach their commercial targets. Want to get more information about online business building success strategies that really work? Contact VMF today!
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