A2X Consulting

These days, there’s no way to can get around the fact that when it comes to developing a business and increasing revenue, social media is a viable tool that should be regularly utilized. However, just because you have a computer and an Internet connection, that doesn’t automatically make you social media savvy.

Are you looking for some ways that social media can help your business growth? Here are five really good ones to consider:

Internet Branding. It’s hard to believe, but there are still companies that either don’t have websites or don’t have ones that are user-friendly and regularly updated. It’s called the “World Wide Web” for a reason. A great way to draw international attention to your business is to not just have a website, but an interactive one (WordPress is an affordable tool for website building). If you haven’t created a site, NameChk.com is a website that checks over 70 forms of social media to see if the name that you want to use is already taken. In creating a website, make sure to include a contact page and a blog option where you can feature content about your company (and people can comment back to you) on a regular basis (make sure to use tag keywords to increase web surfers chances of seeing your site). Another must-have to complement your websites is a Facebook fan page. One of the main differences between it and your personal profile page as that people don’t have to make a friend request to “Like” it and pass it along to their friends. And it keeps your professional and personal life separate, which is always a wise move.

Increasing Traffic with Social Bookmarking. There are many ways that you can expand the audience (i.e., the traffic) that comes to your website. You can do monthly giveaways or create your own referral program where people are eligible for special perks by referring your website to others. You can create an eBook directory where all of your links can be housed in one place. You can even write a 1,000-15,000 eBook that is free to website subscribers. Once you have some ideas, the way that you make more people aware of them is to use social bookmarking sites. A huge benefit with social bookmarking is that people can save websites that they like and return to them, as well as share them with others. Some great ones include Digg.com, Faves.com, Delicious.com, Furl.com and Magnolia.com.

Use Video. A part of the attraction that people have to the Internet is that they can find a lot of what they’re looking for in a relatively short period of time. In other words, it feeds the need for instant gratification. There are pros and cons to that being our culture’s reality, but when it comes to marketing your business, this means that you have to keep in mind that people are looking for the next best thing on a moment-by-moment basis. Therefore, the time that they spent reading a 500-word blog is the same time that many of them could’ve used to watch 3-4 videos. Reading is fundamentally important, so don’t be afraid to use copy in getting your messages across, but video blogs are also a really effective communication tool. By loading them up on your website as well as YouTube, you increase your traffic capabilities even more. For instance, say that you have a catering company. If you have a video about your services or maybe even a five-minute cooking lesson on how to make a desert or two, if “catering” “how to cook”, “create a five-minute desert” are used as tags for the video, when people go to Google these kinds of topics, if they click on the video section that Google provides, there’s a chance that your video will be one of the ones that they see.

Networking. Thanks to social media, you are able to network with people that you would never, in your lifetime, be able to any other way. Although you may mostly read about Twitter when it comes to celebrity gossip and rants, it’s actually a really awesome way to connect with people across the world when it comes making them aware of your company and the services that it provides. In under 140 characters, you can provide an encouraging thought, offer a tip for the day or let people know about any special promotions that you may have. Another great networking website is LinkedIn. It has more of a professional appearance in its layout and so it can help to drawn in other business associates and peers. Google Plus and Live Journal are two other websites that receive high praise for their easy-to-use social networking capabilities.

Helps You to Measure Your ROI. ROI stands for “Return on Investment”. Rather than waiting for annual or quarterly reports, social media can help you to see, in a much faster way, the fruit of your labor. When it comes to social media analytics, some people believe that concrete findings are quite difficult. It doesn’t have to be if you are clear on what you’re looking for. Are you wanting a record of the amount of traffic that comes to your site on a monthly basis? Are you curious about the ration of how much money that you spend on advertising vs. the amount of money that you make from your customers? Once you know your goals, there are several Internet tools that you can definitely help you to determine your company’s development including Google.com/analytics, Omniture.com and Hootsuite.com.