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Businesses can easily expand their marketing activities for very little cost using powerful online tools collectively called social media marketing. Learn from expert Robin Carey how to use social media marketing for your business and what you can do to get started.
Social media marketing is an online way for people to share ideas and information, and an October 2007 survey indicates that 78% of respondents believed using social media marketing can give you a competitive edge. Surprisingly, only 7.75% had allocated any of their marketing dollars to this activity. Learn the opportunities that this relatively new marketing concept presents for your business from my interview with Robin Carey, co-founder of Social Media Today.
Uses for social media marketing
Want to learn what your customers like and don't like about you? Want to find help with business practices within your industry from your peers? Reach out to people using the tools of social media networking; this enables you to invite comments and involve the public in your business, get answers in real time, and stay involved in the ever-changing business world.
Establish yourself as a business expert. You can gain visibility and credibility by offering your insights on business topics through blogging. If you don't have the time to commit to blogging (you must do it on a daily basis or close to this in order to become recognized and read), you can create visibility for yourself by responding to the blogs of others.
Host customer reviews. Many buyers today--both consumers and business decision makers--do not make buying decisions without checking the Internet for comments about the products. If you sell products, create a forum on your site where customers can add their comments. Doing this will generate sales and provide valuable feedback on product improvements to make them more desirable for the customer.
How to implement social media marketing
The great thing about social media marketing is that you can do as much or as little as you have the time and money. You can start small and expand your activities when and to the extent you deem them useful.
Upgrade your site. You can improve your Web site by adding features that enable social media marketing:
- Blogs
- Discussion forums with user-generated content or reviews
- Wikis (Web pages that can be modified by viewers to enable collaboration)
- RSS feeds
Listen to Build Your Business Radio, with your host Barbara Weltman, every Monday from 4 pm to 5pm ET--Live, On Demand 24/7, or via iTunes Podcast.
Check the archives archives for May 5, 2008, to hear Jerry Bowles talk about using social media networking.
