Intro

Facebook and Twitter are fast taking over the world; everyone is on them all the time. Facebook is a great way to keep in contact with your friends and family, you can post photos, blogs, comments, stories etc on your profile which is open to the people in your network to view. Did you know that Facebook is also a fabulous way to grow your business networks as well? More and more businesses are appearing on Facebook as a way to expose the people that work within the company as experts in their fields. Businesses do not run without people and Facebook has given those people a place where they can show off their skills and advertise their services without fee or fuss.

Twitter is a tool that has derived from the idea of SMS marketing – 140 character comments can be posted on Twitter to inform your network (or everyone) or respond to a comment made by one of your network. Twitter is a good place to post your blog links or links to videos you have uploaded, it’s also good for you to view and share links as well.

Linked in is a Business based networking tool, it is profoundly more business oriented than either Facebook or Twitter and appears to be a hybrid of the two.

In any of these social interaction websites you can grow your networks by adding “friends” to your list or “following” a specific person or thread.

Definition

Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. - Wikipedia

Benefits

You grow your network which enables you to potentially tell them about what you do by virtual conversation.

Pros

• It is a free way to market your business
• It does work
• You are seen as an expert in your field

Cons

• It takes time to build networks
• You can get caught spending hours on the sites and get nothing in return
• Making silly comments can hurt your business – be careful what you post

How to Implement this into your Business

Sign up to Facebook, Twitter and Linked in and create profiles and pages.

Write down your social media strategy – what will you be discussing from week to week – make your information flow and link it to other things you are doing at the same times. You are using these tools to expose your business and bring in new trade, not to make friends whom you catch up with for a drink, if social face to face interaction is a result of it – so be it – but you are there to market your business virally online.

Tips

• Allocate a time of day when you will check your accounts and write your own comments – do not check it at any other time – you will get caught spending too much time doing nothing very productive.
• Set your privacy settings so your birth date and address are NOT visible