A new wave has hit with the way businesses are being marketed and promoted. A big part of this promoting is happening on the online world. One form of online marketing that has really begin to take off is Social Media or Social Networking. The word “Social” now means so much more then just a hand shake/meet & greet, or taking a client to a business lunch meeting. Times have changed and our society is getting more social by the minute.
There are 2 points I want to make in this post.
- Being Social to Promote your Business
- Being Social to Protect your Business
Hopefully, you can make connection with them and apply them to your business.
Being Social to Promote your Business
Let’s talk about ways of being social to promote your business.
First things first. There is a lot of talk and a growing popularity with all the social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn), micro blogging (Twitter), etc. More and more businesses are realizing not only the power of social media but also the value of it. With the large followings of these social networks you can reach out the millions of users. Not only can you talk to millions of visitors, you can also find the specific niche or market your company is in and promote your company that way. This will not only create immediate traffic and brand recognition but it will also bring in qualified traffic.
So… Is your company setup through any social networks.?
Do you have a Twitter account? Do you have a facebook account? One thing that has been going on with these social networks is account or URL “squatting” What does that mean? Basically, take SLEEK development as the brand name for example. Someone will go and register a Twitter account (www.twitter.com/SLEEKdevelopment) under our brand name. This is very frustrating to say the least when you go to register an account. Bottom line, you must register these accounts before someone else does. So if you haven’t done so already, go and setup social accounts under your company name.
Being Social to Protect your Business
This is something that anyone promoting their brand or company online should be doing. The title of this can be a little mis-leading though.
Protecting your Brand doesn’t always have to be a negative thing. Monitoring and Protecting your brand can actually be a positive thing. There are several tools such as: Google Alerts, where you can track specific keywords that are indexed by Google. You’ll be notified instantly. So if your brand is “XYZ company” it would be wise to setup a Google Alert for that keyword. If you’re being a “social business” you can take what others are saying about you across the web and make it a positive impact to your brand.
For example, say there is a forum where a group of customers is talking about your brand. Well, why not join the conversation? Say thank you, find out what else you can do to make your product better, or just a simple hello glad you liked our product. Whatever the case may be, don’t be afraid to be SOCIAL. You are the voice of your brand and being social and leveraging these social networks is a great way to protect your brand.
