Over the past few weeks we’ve been talking about the importance of creating a social media marketing plan for your business. Once you’ve established a social presence online, it’s important to measure your social network influence.

Klout is company that provides social media analytics to measure a user’s influence across their social network. It determines influence based on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin activity. Klout looks at the size of a person’s network, the content they create and how other people interact with that content.

Klout measures Retweets, Likes, and Comments to assign a “Klout Score” from 1 to 100 with 100 being the most influential. The Klout Score is used by social media marketers as a way of measuring social networking influence.

Klout helps businesses determine their social impact by providing context around their level of influence. It also does a great job of helping brands and brand influencers connect. It helps them analyze their online influence as well as the influence of the people in their target audience.

“Klout uses data from social networks to measure how many people you influence (True Reach), How much you influence them (Amplification), How influential they are (Network Score)”

Brands can issue “Klout Perks” (exclusive products or experiences) to reward select “influencers” based on their Klout. By rewarding Klout influencers they increase the chances that they will talk about their product and/or service in a positive way.

Social media is having a huge impact on the way people and companies interact. Take advantage of this excellent marketing opportunity to build your brand and grow your business.

If you need help developing a successful Internet Marketing strategy for your business that includes social media marketing, contact a professional Internet marketing company.

SearchReady is a San Francisco Internet marketing company. Our services include website design, mobile web design, search engine optimization, pay per click management and social networking. Contact us today for your Internet marketing needs.

 

Pinterest is a new, fast growing, social network that lets users create and share theme-based image collections. They can upload images from their computer or “pin” items they find on the web using the Pinterest pin it button. Pinterest’s mission is to “connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting”. It is a powerful and visual social network that allows users to create “scrapbooks” of their favorite things.

Started in 2009, it is currently listed as number 5 in the top 10 list of social networks. Pinterest generates more referral traffic on average than Youtube, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Along with Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest will help your business increase the number of visitors to your website and generate more customer leads.

When you join Pinterest, you should avoid self promotion and use your account to promote a “lifestyle” related to your brand. Use this social network to engage potential customers with images and information that attracts and educates them. When you do this effectively, you will drive traffic to your site and increase your sales.

If you don’t have a social media marketing strategy, start today. Consider adding Pinterest to your marketing plan. It’s easy and free. Create a profile for your business with relevant pin boards and add the “Pin It” button to your site so customers can pin your images to their pin boards.

Take advantage of the hottest new social network to grow your business.

If you need help developing a successful Internet Marketing strategy for your business that includes social media marketing, contact a professional Internet marketing company.

SearchReady is a San Francisco Internet marketing company. Our services include website design, mobile web design, search engine optimization, pay per click management and social networking. Contact us today for your Internet marketing needs.

 

YouTube is the largest video sharing site on the Internet. It is the second largest search engine, second only to Google. YouTube provides a great opportunity to gain more exposure for your business. It’s a free, easy way to host your business videos. You can post videos on YouTube about your brand and demonstrate your products and services.

Videos are a great way to tell your story and share helpful information about your company. People are searching everyday for answers to their questions. A “how-to” video is an effective way to share helpful information and generate potential customers for your business.

Creating videos for your business is a fun and effective medium that helps you engage your potential customers. It provides an inexpensive way to help people find solutions to their problems. In addition to YouTube, you can also post your videos on Facebook and link them back to your website. This will increase traffic to your site and generate more customer leads.

YouTube provides an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge, market your products and services and establish yourself as an expert in your industry. When creating your videos, it’s important to tag them with the right keywords so that  people doing searches related to your industry, find your movie clips.

YouTube enhances your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and helps spread the word about your brand. It is the most valuable video marketing and advertising tool for your business.

If you need help developing a successful Internet Marketing strategy for your business that includes social media marketing, contact a professional Internet marketing company.

SearchReady is a San Francisco Internet marketing company. Our services include website design, mobile web design,  search engine optimization, pay per click management and social networking. Contact us today for your Internet marketing needs.

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mauritsonline/4561481118/

 

Twitter is an online social networking service. It enables people to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters. These “microblogs” are called “tweets”. Twitter has 0ver 140 million active users that generate 340 million tweets per day. It is ranked as one of the ten most visited websites.

Twitter is a great marketing tool that lets you engage with existing and potential customers. It is a fast way to get your message out about your business.

Companies that have been successful with Twitter use it to offer exclusive deals and content to their followers. They invite people to check out their special offers, coupons, newsletters and other marketing information. Twitter also provides great word of mouth advertising when people tweet personal recommendations about your business. In addition, it can also be an effective prospecting tool. You can search Twitter to find the people who need your products and/or services to generate more customer leads.

Similar to your website, it’s content that builds your brand and connects you to your followers. Make your tweets helpful and informative. They can range from, links to interesting articles or videos about your industry, upcoming events, answers to customer questions and any other relevant information. Twitter can also help you increase your website traffic when you connect it to your blog and automatically notify your followers each time you post a new article.

Twitter makes it easier, faster, and cheaper to connect with potential customers and build your business.

For more information on how to use Twitter to market your business, check out  Twitter best practices.

If you need help developing a successful Internet Marketing strategy for your business that includes social media marketing, contact a professional Internet marketing company.

SearchReady is a San Francisco Internet marketing company. Our services include website design, mobile web design,  search engine optimization, pay per click management and social networking. Contact us today for your Internet marketing needs.

Photo attribution: http://flic.kr/p/5VwCRW

 

Facebook is the number  one social network in the world, with more than 845 million active users. Of that number there are 483 million daily active users on average. Because of its size, Facebook is a tremendously valuable business tool.

As a key part of your social media marketing strategy, use your Facebook Page as a hub for everything related to your business. By sharing helpful information about your industry, you will increase the visibility of your business. By adding value, you will attract more people to your Facebook page. You can do this by posting articles, videos, photographs, blogs and links to other relevant sites. It’s important that you update your Facebook page on a regular basis to keep people coming back.

You can also use your Facebook page to engage with people and answer their questions about your product or service. It’s a great two-way communication tool that lets you share information quickly and efficiently.

Similar to your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, social media marketing is designed to help you spread the word about your business and generate more customer leads. Enhance your SEO efforts and take advantage of this excellent marketing opportunity by placing a Facebook link icon and any other social media links on your website. This will make it easier for people to find you on these sites.

By posting useful information on your Facebook page on a daily basis, you will generate more followers over time and increase your customer leads.

If you’d like more information about how to develop a successful Internet Marketing strategy for your business that includes social media marketing, contact a professional Internet marketing company to help you.

SearchReady is a San Francisco Internet marketing company. Our services include website design, mobile web design,  search engine optimization, pay per click management and social networking. Contact us today for your Internet marketing needs.

Photo attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mfinleydesigns/3652807120/

 

Word-of-mouth marketing has always been considered the best form of marketing. A friend’s recommendation is more powerful than any advertisement. Social media helps companies spread the word about their business. Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest help businesses get their messages out there and talked about.

Social media has changed the way organizations, communities, and individuals interact. It has created a way for people to exchange ideas about companies, brands and products. By listening and responding to what the public is saying about your products and/or services, you can promote your brand and enhance your company’s image.

However, social media marketing won’t lead to overnight sales success. It will take time and is all about building relationships with people. But if you listen carefully and are responsive and authentic, you will make your business “likeable” on social networks.

Millions of people are sharing information about brands everyday, and social media can spread the word faster than ever before. For example, Facebook has 750 million users and Youtube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world. All you have to do is engage with people on social media sites, listen and respond. This allows consumers to spread the positive word about your business.

By utilizing the power of social media sites you will generate new customers and increase your sales.

If  you don’t have a presence on any social media sites, now is a great time to create a social media marketing plan. In future posts we’ll talk more about some key social media sites that will help you promote your business, such as Facebook, and Twitter.

If you’d like more information about how to develop a successful Internet Marketing strategy for your business that includes social media marketing, contact a professional Internet marketing company to help you.

SearchReady is a San Francisco Internet marketing company. Our services include website design, mobile web design,  search engine optimization, pay per click management and social networking. Contact us today for your Internet marketing needs.

 

Social media is the new “word of mouth” marketing. It provides a way for your business to engage with potential and existing customers, promote your goods and services and gain consumer insight. The growth of social media networks will change the way your company communicates. By expanding your points of contact with your potential customers, you can increase your brand awareness and improve your products and services based on consumer feedback. Social media is an incredibly effective, low-cost option for building your business.

Social media marketing programs focus on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages people to share it with their social networks. Your business message spreads from person to person and resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source. This marketing is driven by word of mouth instead of by paid advertising.

Depending on the kind of business you’re in, you may use social networking sites to upload information about your industry/company and interact with potential and current customers through private messages, forums, and threads.

Where do you start? Begin your social media marketing efforts, with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Create a business page on Facebook, a business profile on Twitter and set up a new profile on LinkedIn. Learn about each network and the kind of content you should share about your business. No two social networks are the same. People use different social networking sites for different reasons. Tailor your approach to match that. Think before you share/tweet/post/. Ask yourself how your message might be interpreted by your audience.

Once your profiles are set up, update them frequently. When consumers visit your page and it hasn’t been updated in over a month, they’ll assume that it’s inactive and may decide not to follow your business. They might also go with your competitor because their page is very active. An active profile suggests that the business will give them better service.That’s the impression you want to make so update your social media accounts on a regular basis.

Remember, social media is meant to connect, not pitch. If potential customers feel they have a connection with your business through their social network, they’re more likely to use you over another company that hasn’t made an effort to connect.

Social media marketing is not the only solution to your online marketing needs. Your website needs to remain at the core of your Internet marketing campaigns.

Social networks are a great way for your target audience to find your site and learn more about your products and services. Your social profiles should encourage people to visit your site. When you have Facebook, Twitter and  Linkedin accounts you need to tell people. Put them on your company website. Buttons can be added to your website which will link your site to each of your social networking profiles. Each social network site provides widgets and banners which you can cut and paste into your website.

Social media marketing is a powerful and effective medium to promote your business and increase your customer leads. Why wait? Start now to take advantage of this great marketing opportunity!

SearchReady is a San Francisco based Internet marketing company offering Web Design, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) services. We’d like to hear from you. Let us know how you use social networking to promote your business.

 

Social networks are websites that facilitate people to interact as well as connect with friends, colleagues, and family members on the internet. Their popularity have gone through the roof leading marketers to adopt them. The underlying principle behind social networks that make marketers strive to establish a niche in them is due to their debility to provide an opportunity to seamlessly interact and share information. Traditional marketing entailed the use of advertisements as well as other forums such as road shows. These are not only expensive, but they pose a number of challenges to the marketers. The very first short fall is that, the efficiency of underlying the marketing goal more often than not was next to impossible to beat successfully. The masses interpretation to advertisement was as a business quest that seeks to influence their decisions to spend. The public will often take advertisement as a fallacy that is geared towards ripping them. the notion though changes when it comes to social networks as through seamless and instantaneous interaction, a debate forum is presented for response to the various reactions that the public’s may inquire.

Social networks marketing if well understood can leverage a business entity or a product to an unanticipated height. This is the ultimate marketer’s goal and dream. With users having various needs and wants in regard to a commercial product, as a marketer, you need to establish the various methods that you can take up when pursuing social networks he very first is via search engine optimization. This calls for you to package quality content in your website. It also seeks to analyses the searching patterns of various customers. Through factual and accurate information, you can draw great attention to your site. With a great traffic on your web, you can go to the second method that entails blogging. This involves posting or writing reviews and personal views on a given product. Social networks host a number of blogging forums that offer you the chance to read review on the product. You can use the blogs to clarify false write-ups as well as support the positive claims. In addition to blogging, you need to be active on the various other sites that facilitate social networking. Being active on social networks sites such as Face book, Twitter, and the very latest buzz by Gmail goes a long way towards the entity of marketing. Being active involves setting up your own fans page and crafting methods to generate a large followership.

As a marketer, you stand a greater chance of being well established and credited if you are involved in article writing. This is a great mode of advertisement as well as marketing. It entails writing up of reviews as well as comments on various products. Just as all the other social networks, article-writing forums present an opportunity for you to interact with other writers who are involved in comments and reviews on your products. The need for clear, factual, accurate and timely information could not be over emphasized when it comes to social networking.

 

Socializing is considered one of the most involving tasks in human life because it encompass meeting of new people and engaging with them, in a bid to try and share information, ideas, cultures and religion. In this day and age, those who regularly use the internet and are not on any social sites are viewed as being behind trendy events. The relationship between people in different social networks varies from factors such as sexual relationships, family, relationship beliefs, and financial exchanges among others. People have taken the social aspect of life to another level since these social networks serve as the linkages between people from different backgrounds. Commonly referred to as chatting, these networks have greatly contributed to exchange of information, as the rate at which it is transmitted to millions of people within seconds is extremely high.

With their advent, different classes in society have been intertwined and connected. The shape of a social network often has a direct impact on the users. The smaller and tighter the social network, the less the information flow since it has a limited number of members. Huge and more open networks often have more members and are involving. Such members tend to posses quite some knowledge on issues since new ideas are continually brought on board. Other than people, these sites have been used to measure the relationship between organizations, while still evaluating the informal connections existing between organization objectives. Organizations have used them to hire conduct research and business success.

In matters of creating public awareness on certain issues, the sites have been known to come in handy. They are said to limit the spread of most of the contagious diseases like HIV through creating massive awareness campaigns where members participate by posting their comments and in the process get to learn. The community of people or organizations forming a social network looks for various things from the site such as meeting of new people and gathering and exchange of information on various issues. All said and done, social networks are also a haven for cons who will pretend to be someone they are not to get something from one of the site members including vital information that could lead to loss of valuables such as money.

They are also a safe haven for viruses that can destroy computers. Creators of the viruses then still use the same sites to try and convince other users to download their anti viruses at a fee. In addition, more so, these could turn out not to be genuine but just other forms of viruses that will destroy the machines further. Some of these sites include Friend finder, My Space, Face book, Twitter, and classmates. It is therefore totally important for members of such sites to try and do some background checks on whomever they are interacting with. Predators out on the prowl will go to any lengths to get what they want. Using them for the intended purpose is of uttermost importance. Preying on other users through these sites and conning them can attract a handsome jail sentence since it is illegal.

 

Social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Tagged, Twitter and various other sites a modern, fun, and much faster way to get in touch with family and friends and reconnect with lost contacts. Most of these sites began as fun sites for entertainment purposes, but sites like Facebook and MySpace have also become excellent marketing tool and build social networks that know no physical boundaries.

In this day and age, people wish to reconnect with long lost acquaintances, friends, and business contacts. By creating social networks like high school, university, workplace, and even town related, one can be assured that a contact or two will resurface. One other interesting way that social sites like Facebook have allowed for limitless creation of networks and groups, games and even business ideas have created groups to get more people to join their main project. For example, famed game Mafia Wars have groups that allow you to collect inventory and extra bonuses that one can use on the game. Event planners, IT businesses, and many other entrepreneurs have come up with social networks that allow people to join and this is where one can find out the latest developments in the relevant fields and professions and one can even find job openings advertised on these social networks.

With upcoming artists, musicians, and other young brilliant minds can post their works of art, music and videos on MySpace and Facebook which will enable ones friends and connections to view these products and, if favored, these sites allow one to share or spread it around and this has become a great way to market ones music or art. If one wishes to get their news and information as it happens, many media companies like CNN and Al-Jazeera have social network pages that will not only let you know what is happening in the news but will also keep you informed on news shows that one should watch out for.

Large companies and brands have created groups and fan pages that make people aware of the happenings in the business and entertainment world. Celebrities have personalized fan pages that could rake in new and younger fans. Brands like the Grammys and Oscars have also joined in the social networks craze and these sites have renewed the public’s faith in these previously overrated events. Television shows and films also have gained large audiences and revenue to go along with them because of sneak peeks, episode summaries, or giveaways that create interest and awareness about these shows. Facebook gives one the opportunity to build an advertisement that can be viewed alongside ones profile page. These ads are short, colorful and are viewed based on ones interests and preferences, much like Google Ads.

These sites have interesting pages that are easy to use and accessible both on the web and on mobile internet in their appropriate formats. They allow one to edit their personal information, load images of themselves and the product or service on offer, easily update and access ones social networks and allow one to keep in touch with their fans and network members.