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Growing Your Business Network with Social Media

If your business or company is struggling to find new customers, you can count on social media to help
you build your business network. However, before you can sell, keep in mind that creating a trusted
relationship with your potential customers is of great importance.
In this article, we’ll give you a few tips on how to use social media to find prospects and leads for your
business and establish a relationship with them.
Converse with people on Twitter

Tweet chats are recommended for building a network as they are seen as one of the most effective lead
generation tools in social media. The best thing about this is that everyone starts out as a stranger.
Eventually, they begin to know each other and may develop a relationship that extends beyond the
regular chat.
Here, you may encounter people who ask you questions. Since your reply is only limited to 140
characters, you have to be as concise as possible. Also, let them know that you are open to accept a
direct message and would be interested to carry the conversation further through another platform or
by phone.

Join LinkedIn groups
LinkedIn provides its users an opportunity for connecting with people who fit their prospect profile.
Here, you can find a specific group you’re interested in.
In the header navigation, just hover on “Interests” and click on “Groups”. From here, you can use
specific keywords to search for groups that are relevant to your business or company. Feel free to check
out each group and join a group with members who might be interested in what you offer.
Please be reminded that this is not a selling place. Build a relationship by being helpful and offering
services to the other members.

Share insights from an event
If you have attended a conference or trade show, feel free to share the highlights of the said event with
people who weren’t able to attend. This will help you attract people who are interested in the same
niche.
Share your notes through social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. Also, don’t forget to include
the event’s official hashtag in your tweets. This will include them in the conversation. Most importantly,
this post will be visible to other users who are not following you. You have to pay attention to user who starts following you as they could be your new prospects. And when the time is right, reach out to them
and offer your services.

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Using Social Media in Job Search

Social media can be used in job seeking and marketing yourself to future employers. Unfortunately,
most students and graduates are unaware of it. One study revealed that less than 40% of the graduates
would consider marketing themselves to job recruiters online. Meaning, the remaining 60% are missing
out on the opportunity of using social media to help them land a job.

Facebook


There are a number of sites which are used for social networking and professional networking. While
your Facebook account may not help you capture the attention of your potential employer, you
shouldn’t ignore it for job-seeking opportunities.
Some employers use it in promoting their brand. Some also offers graduate programs, which allows
potential candidates to interact with the recruitment staff. This could help you pick up a few tips about
the recruitment process and emerge as a well-informed candidate.

Blogs


Blogs are another great way of improving your chances of getting hired. By writing your own blog, you
can showcase your writing skills, your enthusiasm towards your audience and your knowledge of a
particular area. Also, if you can establish yourself as an online authority, then you’ll surely be ahead of
other candidates. Your blog will provide potential employers an insight on how you work and your
passion for the industry.

LinkedIn


If you’re not yet on LinkedIn, then now might be the right time to create an account. Survey revealed
that 93% of online recruiters are using LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is a business-oriented site with over 90 million users from different parts of the world. This
provides an opportunity to network professionals from different employment sectors. So, make sure
that your LinkedIn profile sells you effectively to online recruiters. Also, adding a photo in your profile is
a good idea. With a professional-looking photo displayed in your profile, people are 4 times more likely
to connect with you.
Though LinkedIn has fewer users, this site is acknowledged as the number one site in Europe for
business networking.

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Generating Leads through Social Media

If you are considering starting a lead generation campaign, social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+ may be the best place to start. However, please keep in mind that it takes knowledge and practice to pull leads from the conversations that occur on these platforms.

In this article, we’ll give you a few ways on how to use social media in generating leads for your business. Read on and learn how to incorporate these steps into your marketing campaign.

Share useful and informative content

If you have a blog, feel free to share your content to different social media platforms. Make sure that the contents you share are valuable and informative as this will help increase your chances of getting more leads. Also, consider writing contents that your audience will appreciate and may find interesting.

Engage with your audience

Engaging with your audiences on a regular basis will help you create a great impression among your potential leads. By interacting with your audience, you will build a lasting relationship that could eventually result to more leads and sales.

Don’t wait for leads, look for them

In some cases, people use social networking sites to search for products or services they need. This is especially true for B2B, where a business may require the services of other company. In search for the best candidate, they use their social media connections and ask around.

Feel free to check on groups and communities from time to time and use certain keywords to find anyone who might be interested in your products or services.

Advertise on social media

Social media could help you reach lots of potential leads. Take advantage of Facebook’s Promoted Post feature. Use this to advertise your posts and watch as it drives traffic to your site, which could lead to conversions.

Regular advertising may also be of helpful. If you have a special offer that is ongoing, feel free to advertise it through social media.

 

 

 

 

 

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How to Use Social Media in Launching a Product

social media goals

Social media gives you the opportunity to connect and engage with people with minimal effort and limited budget. If you are on the lookout for a creative means of launching your product, you might want to consider using social media.

In this article, we’ll give you a list of ways on how to use social media in launching a new product. Read on as we give you a few suggestions that will help you with your next launch.

Teaser campaign

Before the launch, try to think of creative ways that could hint your followers that something big and exciting is coming very soon. This will spark the interest of your audience.

Months before the launch, you can post random images that could be associated with your product. Also, feel free to use code names in all your updates in order to create a buzz within the online community.

Create a video

Social media provides business owners to easily connect with their target audience. Why not take advantage of this opportunity and create a video that is focused on the need you wish to address while providing a hint at the solution you wish to offer.

Create a founder’s list

Create a list of people who shows interest in your product and would want to learn more about your launch. Create a special page where you can direct these people to. On this page, consider placing an option where they can sign up for special updates.

You main goal is to gather a group of people who have shown interest on the teaser and video that you have posted. You can ask for the help of these people to spread the word about your product later on.

Behind the scenes

After creating a founder’s list, it is important to provide them something substantial that would keep them interested in your campaign. Creating a personalized video and giving them a peak of what’s happening behind the scenes will get them excited about the launch.

Encourage people to spread the word

Building a loyal fan base is one of the key advantages of social media. When the time is right, you can ask for the aid of these people and encourage them to spread the word.

The simplest and fastest way of doing this is by creating a clickable tweet. You can use ClicktoTweet to do this.

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5 Social Media Marketing Tools for Your Business

Every marketing channel has tools that can make your marketing tasks more
effective and efficient. Social media marketing is one of them.
For the past few years, several social media marketing tools have been launched.
However, not all of them were created equal. So, before choosing which of these
tools you should use, it is important to have a clearly defined objectives and
measurable outcomes. This will help you determine if your social media marketing
efforts are successful.
Listed below are some of the most popular monitoring tools. Read on and decide if
these tools are the ones you need.

Viralheat
One of Viralheat’s most interesting features is that it allows business owners to
compare their overall brand mentions against their competitors. The data is then
presented in a pie chart or graph.
This is advantageous as it helps you determine if your marketing efforts enables
you to increase brand buzz across social media platforms.

Sysomos
Sysomos is especially useful for larger companies. With a $550 monthly plan, you
can throw in a few bells and whistles as it includes a dedicated account manager, 5
users and unlimited data.
Sysomos provides management of your company accounts and social media
account monitoring as well. Data Visualization is one of its best features. This allows
users to get to the root of conversations in order to understand the factors that
influence them.

UberVU
UberVU provides its users with actionable insights. When providing listening and
monitoring data, it sources the most social media networks. This tool monitors a
variety of networks such including Picasa, Youtube, Blogger, LinkedIn, Twitter and
Facebook. It also has a feature which they refer to as “Signal”, which scans all the
conversations and mentions relevant to your brand. They also detect dozens of
signals such as trending stories, spikes in sentiment and volume and influencer
mentions.

Sprout social
This is a modestly priced tool that can help you monitor and manage your company
profiles on the Internet. With a $39 monthly plan, it allows you to manage a
maximum of 10 profiles.
In terms of monitoring your brand metrics, Sprout Social only provides results from
Twitter and Facebook. However, this tool has the ability to monitor brand mentions
from other sources like news sites and blogs.

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Benefits of Social Media Marketing

There are a lot of blog posts and articles which stresses the importance of
integrating social media into your marketing strategies. Most people believe that
social media platforms provide a great impact on a business’ lead generation and
sales.
Listed below are some of the benefits of social media marketing. Keep in mind,
though, that these benefits may not be seen overnight. You have to put in a great
deal of effort and wait for a few months in order to see significant results.

Communication
Social media platforms are created in order to share information and interact with
other people. To maximize your marketing efforts, it is best to develop a social
media marketing strategy that would encourage your followers to interact with you.
This has to be a two-way communication.

Networking
Social media does not only help you extend your reach and build new relationships.
It’s also a great place where you can deepen and maintain the existing ones.

Build a reputation
As a business owner, you know that having a good reputation is one of the most
important ingredients to success. While your marketing efforts are focused on
maintaining what has been created, social media marketing makes these benefits
more pronounced.

Drive traffic
While driving traffic to your site is the main reason why you decided to create a
social media account, this comes as a great bonus. You can post a link to your
newest post and see people click the link and visit your site.

Promotion
Social media platforms are also a great avenue for promotion. Promote your brand
or your newest products, provide information about them and increase awareness
about your brand. You can also use social media to promote your events. Capture
people’s attention, create buzz and invite them to attend your event.

Extend reach

There are millions of users who access their social media accounts on a daily basis.
With this, it would be easier to reach as much people within a single post.
With over 150 million registered users, Twitter has been named as the 9th most
popular website on the Internet as of May 2011

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Tips in Using Video in Social Media

The Internet is filled with content and information. With the surplus of information, it may be difficult to entice people to read your contents or watch your videos, unless they’re actually in need of that information.

In this article, we’ll give you a few tips on how use video content on social media. Read on and get your message across your audience.

Introduce your company to the online community

Since you are on the Internet, it is best to introduce your company to the online community in a fun and creative manner. While fan engagement is encouraged, this does not mean that you have to post cute photos in order to gather likes. Instead, spend enough time to plan your video content and make sure to highlight your company’s strengths.

Capture the attention of your target audience

There is no denying that social media provides great benefits to business owners. However, most business owners find it difficult to capture the attention of their target audience and get them to view these videos.

Please bear in mind that the description that you include with the video actually makes a big difference. When writing a description, make sure to convey the message in a matter of 2-3 sentences.

Most importantly, be sure to grab the attention of the viewer, especially on the first 10-15 seconds. If you fail to do so, then there’s a greater possibility that they won’t finish watching your video and look for something more interesting. Your goal is to convey the message quickly and efficiently.

Video quality

You don’t need to create a video with the same quality as a cinematic trailer. However, please make sure that your video comes with a decent quality. A video taken from a shaky camcorder may not do well.

Meanwhile, an HD video with boring content may not attract as much viewers as well. So, we recommend a combination of both – creative and informative content matched with decent quality.

Length

A study which was conducted in 2011 revealed that viewers are more likely to watch videos ranging from 5 to 8 minutes. Longer videos, on the other hand, tend to turn people away.

 

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4 Social Media Marketing Tips for Beginners

Social media marketing is beneficial for small business owners as it helps them build awareness about their business and products or services through different social media channels. With the right tactics, you’ll be rewarded with increased product visibility, a new batch of potential clients and bountiful sales as well.

As a beginner, building a social media presence may not be that easy. We have compiled a few tips to make the process easier for you.

Choose a social media platform

As a beginner, it would be best to choose 1 or 2 social media platforms and stick with it. This would be easier instead of working across different platforms at the same time.

A great way to determine which platform is best for you is to follow the influencers and learn about their success story. Follow the leaders in your niche and check out their Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and other social media accounts.

If they have 50,000 Facebook fans but only 5,000 Twitter followers, then Facebook may be a more suitable social media platform for your niche.

Optimize your social media platforms

Decide which social media tools you’ll be using and optimize your profiles. You are more likely to get more followers and boost your SEO efforts by optimizing your profile.

If you wish to have a trusted profile, then using a real photo would be of great help. Social media is all about connecting with people, so you have to show the people who you are in order to get their trust.

Connect your social media accounts with your blog or website

If your social media profile is ready, connecting your blog or website to your social media account would be the next step. Each platform has a certain set of procedures to follow. So, you have to abide by these rules and do it correctly.

Add social media buttons to your blog or site

Adding social media buttons on your blog or site is beneficial as it could help reader share your content easily.

For increased exposure, it is best to place the buttons above the fold. Also, larger buttons are more visible and are more likely to get you more clicks compared to smaller buttons.  

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5 Best Business Apps

As business owners we are on the go a lot, it is great to find those apps to make your life just a little bit easier! Here are 5 apps we love and use on a daily basis!

1) Flipgram- Bring Moments to Life! Create beautiful short video stories using your photos, set to music you love! http://flipagram.com/  This app is great for businesses they can take pictures of events they are at, or presentations or even new products and then take those pictures and create a nice short video to share on Instagram and social media.

2)  Web Recording Tool- Get ready to impress and be impressed, with this first of a kind app that is not only extra original but super useful too! Looking for the best way to explain or show someone how to navigate a specific area of the Internet but don’t have the words for it? Show it with a video! This is a great app for businesses when they are wanting to show someone their website, or how to explain something on their website, blog, YouTube, Social Media etc. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/web-recording-tool/id683468115?mt=8

3) Dropbox- Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again! This app is a great tool for businesses that are virtual or on the go a lot, you can upload important documents that you use daily on your computer, upload to Dropbox then when you are out and about if you have this app you can view and edit from your phone or tablet!

4)  Hootsuite– HootSuite is a social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. Launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audiences, and distribute targeted messages using HootSuite’s unique social media dashboard. https://hootsuite.com/features/mobile-apps This is a great app for businesses that are trying to keep up with their social media in a busy life style. You can log into 1 platform and be able to post to all your social media profiles. It is so easy!

5)  Evernote- Remember Everything- Evernote apps and products make modern life manageable, by letting you easily collect and find everything that matters. http://evernote.com/ As business owners we are very busy everyday trying to manage a company, social media, the books, personal life, bills the list goes on and on, this is a great tool to help you remember those things!

 

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What does being a “social business” mean?

Being a business owner today means you need to do more than just run your company, you need to be social! Social Media has been a great tool for business owners to speak with their customers and target audience, one problem some businesses have is making social media a 2-way street. Businesses should not just be posting everyday to social media, businesses need to get involved! Think of social media as an online networking event, you go and ask other people what they do and what they need help with in their business and get to know those people. Social media is the same thing; you need to ask questions, get feedback, answer questions, and get involved in your online community!

I did some research on what does it mean to be a social business, and I found this great article from YFS Magazine: Here are a few things they mention in the article that we totally agree with, be sure to read the whole article here http://yfsmagazine.com/2013/08/27/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-social-business/2/#axzz2pvcIdtPw

What was most surprising, however not really, was the disconnect between social media strategy and overall business objectives. In our research we found:

  • Only 34% of businesses feel that their social strategy is connected to business outcomes.
  • Just 28% of companies studied felt that they have a holistic approach to social media, where lines of business and business functions work together under a common vision.
  • Only half of companies surveyed said that their top executives were “informed, engaged and aligned with their companies’ social strategy.”

 

What does it mean to be a social business?

A social business is more than social media. Yet, it’s a term that’s often confused with social media strategy. There’s an important difference between a social business and a social media strategy.

Each represent distinct qualities for which “social” is simply a qualifier. In the context of “media”, social is an adjective that describes the nature of channels, networks, or platforms that facilitate conversations online. When placed ahead of business, social articulates a philosophy or approach.

In this case, “social business” is a philosophy, a way of business in which social technologies supported by new approaches facilitate a more open, engaged, and collaborative foundation for how we work.

Isn’t ‘social’ just, a necessary nuisance?

The fact that social media and social business still cause debate, or even confusion after all these years, is understandable. Many business owners see social media as a novelty or a distraction for young adults and kids. They haven’t realized the impact of social networks because they either:

  • Don’t have time
  • Can’t see the value
  • Find it difficult to keep up with all of the networks
  • Or a combination of all of the above

Understandably, the priority and focus is driving business objectives, creating opportunities, and solving problems. Many founders and CEO’s don’t make decisions based on technology or trends, yet when their teams talk about social they tend to emphasize social media rather than social business goals.

 

The Goal of a Social ‘Business’ Strategy

A social business strategy starts with a vision for how social media will improve customer and employee experiences and relationships. It aligns social media initiatives with business goals and opportunities. Technology thus becomes an enabler for a bigger mission and purpose.

A social media strategy outlines how a business will employ social networks to engage customers or employees. When social is viewed through the lens of customer expectations, preferences, opportunities and challenges you can’t help but to at least consider further research and pilot programs that lead to bigger initiatives.

In the end, you will learn that a true social business strategy employs social media as one of the primary channels, not the only channel, to deliver a consistent, connected, and additive experience online, through mobile and in the real world by modernizing and improving the complete customer and employee lifecycle.\
Read more: http://yfsmagazine.com/2013/08/27/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-social-business/#ixzz2pvgAECFl
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives
Follow us: @YFSMagazine on Twitter

So our question to you is . . .  What is your company doing to be social? Please share with us what has worked and not worked! We want to hear from you!!!!

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