It is thrilling to recognize all the way social media networks can benefit your business and start using them. Once upon a time, when a business owner wanted publicity for her business, she created a press release and sent it to the local newspaper or television news station. If the press release was sufficiently interesting and newsworthy, the information it contained would be released to the public. If the information was not deemed sufficiently interesting and newsworthy, it would not be released. The entrepreneur could influence, but not control the message released to the world.
Today, business owners have things much easier when it comes to getting attention for their businesses. Thanks to the power of social media networks, entrepreneurs now have the power to control what message Is released and when it is released. This provides a great deal of flexibility and many interesting options. Social media networking has many options. It seems that almost every day there is a new and exciting social media/networking on the scene. Some of these last and grow. Other are literally here today and gone tomorrow. This article will deal only with the following social media/networks:
* Facebook
* Instagram
* Pinterest
* Twitter
Facebook: Entrepreneurs are setting up Facebook accounts in order to communicate and interact with current or potential customers. Instead of collecting and interacting with friends, business owners are able to cultivate relationships with fans. Increasingly entrepreneurs are using Facebook to carry out contests in addition to offering coupons and special offers. Click here to check out the Facebook business page for James, Davis and Associates, my company that publishes Janeane’s World.
Instagram – is a photo-heavy social media networking site that allow users to share photos and comments about the photos with followers. The addition of video to the Instagram service offering menu a few month ago offered more options to users. Another interesting recent development with Instagram is targeted distribution called “Instagram Direct” which allows send photos and video directly to select persons. Click here to check out my personal instagram account.
Pinterest: Is basically an electronic bulletin board. It is the site where people go planning to spend five minutes and end up spending two hours. Users create boards aka files designed to keep related pins or photos together. Thee board and pins are then followed or liked by other users. These pins are a way to share new products, ideas and information with current and potential customers. Click here to check out my Pinterest Boards.
[Tweet “Use social media networks to give the image of your business you want the world to see.”]
Twitter : allow users to send short (140 characters or less) messages that are read by followers. An interesting phenomenon that has developed is that customers often use Twitter to deal with customer service issues rather than calling a company on the telephone. Some larger companies have gotten a good reputation with customers by responding two Twitter complaints in 15 minutes or less. Entrepreneurs can use Twitter to keep customers informed and to interact with customers. click here to check out the Twitter account of James, Davis and Associates the company that publishes Janeane’ World.
If your business is not yet using social media to share its message with the world, let today be the day you start. Pick one of the social media networking sites listed here and start crafting the appearance your business gives the world.
In conclusion, it is thrilling to recognize the ways social media networks can benefit your business and start using them. So, the question for you this thrilling day is, how are you going to use social media to help your business efforts?
This is a great post. Social media is so important these days and such a great way to get involved with your fans.
I love instagram! I think that photo sharing is the new way to connect with others socially and i think it has really taken off.
I know social media is soooo important for growing your brand but I’m really bad about it. It’s actually one of my goals for this year, to social media my stuff better 🙂
I agree clickable links would be great on Instagram.
I use social media as well but sometimes not as faithful as I could.
I totally forgot I was even on Instagram until I found it on my phone (oops) and G+ I used more when I was blogging on blogger. Time to come up with a new strategy to get everything working together.
I REALLY think that social media is THE WAY to get your business “out there”. I wish Instagram was a little ‘better’ though. I think they should allow your links to be clickable. Much better advertising that way.
My favorite is Instagram, by far. I’m trying with G+ but I struggle there. It just doesn’t feel intuitive to me.
I try to use social media as much as possible to get more attention for my blog.
This is a great post for small business to begin the transition into the social media world. Awesome overall explanation of each platform.
I use all of these social media outlets and they help, Facebook used to be my top traffic supporter but it was dropped and is now Twitter. Great resources to have – thank you for sharing!
What a great post for those learning about social media! As some of your other readers have stated, my goal this year is to really utilize Google +. I feel much more confident with the others.
One of the best tips I heard at a conference this summer was that you don’t know which social media your audience is using so be present on all of them. Never miss gaining a new reader.
Great post! I’m a social media manager for a homeschool math company and it tremendously helped his business this year being active on Facebook, Twitter, G+ etc!
I use all the social media outlets to promote my blog. I would love to get more familiar with StumbleUpon. I have heard it is great for social media promotion, but it still confuses me a bit.
Great round up! ALL businesses should be on those social media networks!
My social media reach has grown a lot the last couple of years. Twitter and Pinterest are my two favorite platforms at the moment.
I grew leaps and bounds this year, and 2014 is all about social media for me! Learning new tools and ways to streamline.
I’ve been working much harder on using them to their best advantage, or at least better than I was using them a year ago or so. The problem is time!
My favorite social media platform right now happens to be Pinterest. I have been building my business around that.
Pinterest is my #1 referrer so I focus a lot on that (I have a craft/home blog so my content does well there). I put more time into FB than G+ last year and I think that was a mistake so I’m putting more effort into G+ and Hometalk this year
i’m working on g+ and pinterest this year. facebook is making me batty.
I spend most of my time on Facebook and Instagram. I would like to try to use Google+ more this year too!
I use all of the social media outlets you mentioned to promote my blog and business, as well as for personal use. I think it’s very important to always remember when posting on social media that even if you’re not specifically talking about your blog or business, you’re always representing it, so be careful what you post 🙂
Great social media tips. I think my personal favorite is pinterest, but I connect best with brands and businesses on Twitter.
I think it’s very important to use social media nowadays to attract attention to your business. I know that my blog would not be where it is today if I wasn’t active on social media!
I use social media a lot already, but need to work on reaching even more people. Great advice!
I currently use all of these for my customers depending upon their needs.
I agree that social media is vital to businesses these days! I don’t know what I would do without it!
Great advice all around. I use them all but I think Instagram is the one that I use the least for business. In all honestly, it sometimes bothers me to see a bunch of non-personal things on my feed so I limit that.
I share your Facebook frustration. I want to see all my info as it comes in, not what FB thinks I want to see.
Businesses must stop ignoring customer service via social media. I think it is easy because no one walks through the door with it.
I want to learn more about Google+ because I am not getting all of its benefits yet.
Google + is new to me a well. I am learning to manipulate it.
Instagram is a hard one for me. I started using quotes instead of photos and that ha been working for me.
That is great advice. I try to use all of my social media sites to promote my business.
I agree Social Media is a great way to get your name or business out there.
I use all of these, but sometimes get so frustrated by Facebook and how it chooses who sees my post. I need to start using G+ more often, I heard it will be the highest ranking site in the future…
I have such a love hate relationship with social media. It can be such a great tool though and businesses that don’t recognize that I think are ultimately hurting themselves.
So, I really need to learn more about Google + so that I can use it to be more organized and interconnected. I already use gmail – I could be much more efficient in 2014. Thanks for the new info!
I use social media a lot, but I really need to get better at using Google Plus. I know it’s a good tool, but I just never really got into it for some reason.
I use social media a lot, mainly G+, Pinterest and FB. I have to learn about how to be better at Twitter and maybe create and Instagram account too.
Building a social media presence is as important as any other aspect of business ownership!
I am already using social media, but for me, I need to come up with better strategies to reach more people.
Social media is so incredibly important to a business of any size. Don’t jump in and try to do everything at once though, find where your audience is spending most of their time and start your focus there.
I enjoy facebook, and I have discovered google+ is the best way to be “found” on the ‘net. My goal this year is to really press into google+ and not as much on facebook. I enjoy pinterest, too, for pictures, but I haven’t dabbled in instagram. twitter? Maybe I’m too old for that!!! It’s going to be a fun year!
I currently do a lot of Facebook and Twitter. I haven’t totally gotten into Instagram and Google+ or even Pinterest. I know I’m going to have to get the hang of them soon since so much people are using them. I guess I may also need a handbook for dummies on those.