According to Forbes’ article “The Top 7 Social Media Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2014“, investment in social media is becoming an absolute necessity for a successful business rather than a luxury and the benefits are hard to ignore! They listed increased customer loyalty and trust, improved brand awareness and improved audience reach and influence as a few of the many benefits to investing in social media.
To put it bluntly: it’s a must for a successful business!
If you are interested in building and growing your business, you HAVE to get on social media and get involved with your potential customers. Getting your business in front of your target market is essential to be successful and gives you an opportunity to further brand your business, connect with like-minded people and keep an eye on what people are saying about you and your business. The more you are out there, the more people can find you.
Using social media is much more than just having a personal Facebook page or Twitter account–it’s about interacting with your potential clients to build trust and keep aware of the latest trends in your line of business as well as enforce your branding. Because building social media for a business is different than for a personal site, we’ve compiled resources to get you started below.
The most common combination of efforts take place on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and blogs, though Pinterest is becoming more and more popular among marketing efforts. So let’s get started!
A Breakdown of Social Media
Social Media can be confusing, but we’re here to help! This infographic provides an overview of major social media platforms and their benefits to help you select the best platforms for your business and understand why integrating social media is an absolute must for you to be successful. Image Courtesy of Top Web Design Schools Now that you know more about why social media is so important, why not check out our tutorials and guides for getting Facebook, Google+, Twitter …
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Facebook is a social networking platform originally created for college students to connect to each other, but once opened up to the public, the site has become the biggest social network on the web. It now has expanded further to cater to businesses and boasts over one billion users liking and commenting an average of 3.2 billion times per day. A business page on Facebook is very similar to the personal account you likely already have and includes profile pictures …
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Google+
Google+ is social networking platform developed by Google that ties directly into many of Google’s products. Anyone with an account on Google can create a profile and a business page on Google+. The great thing about Google+ is that because it’s a Google product, it works symbiotically with their search engine to match the right customers to the right businesses! You may already have a Google+ profile for your personal use, but for your business you will need a dedicated …
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LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network focused on building a professional identity online and connecting opportunities, business deals and new ventures together. It’s essentially a virtual r?sum? where you can flaunt your talents, be endorsed for your skills by other professionals and find clients or employment through related channels. Their mission is to “connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. When you join LinkedIn, you get access to people, jobs, news, updates, and insights that …
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Twitter is a wonderful platform for interacting with like-minded people from all over the world that incorporates microblogging of messages that are less than 140 characters in length. Once registered for a Twitter account, you can follow and be followed by other accounts to help increase your reach across the internet as well as connect and share ideas. A subscriber can see the materials that you tweet out in your 140 character messages in their timeline and depending on your …
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Yelp
Yelp is a crowdsourced urban guide designed to help people find places to eat, drink, be pampered and have a good time as reviewed by people who have been there and can offer their opinion on what’s great and not-so-great. For business owners, this means the potential to amass credibility and gain more customers by interacting with the people leaving reviews, setting up deals through Yelp or even list an advertisement with them as your business picks up. Yelp offers …
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