Social Media and how to use it…
Social Media is an often used term and it covers a broad range of different websites – almost all new
websites include some form of social media: in comments, embedded media or links to social tools. I like
to think of Social Media as an umbrella term that as a basic rule covers three main types of website:
Social Media
Sites such as YouTube, SoundCloud and Flickr are all Social Media website. Literally speaking they are
used to display Media in the context of a Social community. In this sense media is used with the
traditional meaning of an act of communication – via film, art, photography, music etc.
Social Networking
Since the arrival of MySpace and Facebook the importance of social networking sites has increased
dramatically over the last 3 or 4 years. These are now the most used and most active type of website in
the world. The basic function of a Social Networking site is to allow users to chat, view and interact with
each other via a simple interface.
Social Bookmarking
This is the most difficult type of social website to describe and understand. The idea behind Social
Bookmarking sites is to easily store and distribute useful information and links to websites. Rather than
storing favourite sites on your personal computer you are allowing anyone to view your links and rate
the web pages based on the relevance to topic, how interesting they found it or some other criteria.
So that’s a brief overview of Social Media but how do you use it to your advantage when marketing a new website, prodcut or service? That’s where the work starts!
There are lots of blogs that will help with talking about social media and marketing and how to optimise your Facebook pages and Twitter tweets but one of the easiest to understand I’ve read recently is this:
16 Rules For Social Media Optimization Revisited
Here at Best Served Cold we can help you get started with Social Media and guide you on the best sites to register with, who your audience might be and how you can utilise the social internet to promote your brand or website.
Getting Started with Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels
and it is a powerful strategy that can get you links, attention and large amounts of traffic. Sometimes the
work involved can be quite time intensive but it is always low cost.
The two main benefits of developing a good social media marketing strategy are:
- High numbers of new visitors
- Quality links from external websites
Both of these translate directly and indirectly to a higher search engine ranking and increased traffic to
your website:
- New visitors from social bookmarks or networking sites may find your site or article, read it, and then leave the site. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in the content. Online success is, at the most basic, a numbers game. The more visitors you can attract to your site, the more people will read your content and the more people will register with your site or bookmark you for future reference.
- A well written article, marketed across social networks will encourage other bloggers, journalists and network members to write about and link to your site. These links get picked up by search engines such as Google and this in turn increases the value / ranking of your site within search engine results.
If you already have a Social Media online marketing campaign in place we can still help you further by talking you through Social Media News Releases or SMNRs. We have helped to create Pressitt.com which is a frree service that allows you to publish online press releases across your favourite Social Networking and Social Media platforms. From Pressitt:
The Pressitt SMNR template offers all of the core information found in a traditional press release, but additionally takes advantage of linking, multimedia and Web 2.0 shareable features. It allows users to host downloadable hi-res images within their releases, along with PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs – YouTube videos can also be embedded. Each brand using the service is assigned its own RSS feed, and press contacts can be reached via LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, up-to-date bookmarking and sharing icons are presented including Posterous, Yammer and Sphinn.
Once created your SMNR can be published to the Pressitt platform and shared to social networks or via an email link to your contacts and colleages.
With a Pressitt newsroom you can collate all your Social Network links in one place giving your customers an easy way to find you and your products. More importantly it gives you a high profile online presence to talk about your brand directly to your customers. If you’d like to find out more about Pressitt and Social Media News Releases why not contact one of the Pressitt team?
