Social media is one of the most useful marketing tools available today in the market. As a business if you are not using then in your business, you are lagging behind in your line of business. It offers new opportunities to engage customers, clients, targeted communities and brand awareness initiatives to help grow and develop brand and services. These online platforms help people to share and stay connected with one another anywhere in the world at any point of time. Companies get the opportunity to join the conversation by connecting with people through their social media accounts. If used wisely, it can help a growing business to boost brand awareness, improve customer relations, enhance sales and expand business.

1. What is Social Media?
Social Media is a set of tools that encourage dealings, discussions, and community
interactions, allowing the people to share information and build a healthy relationship. Many
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2. individuals think that it is a broadcast channel or a sales and marketing tool. But, this is not
true. It is all about conversations, community, connecting with people and sharing
information within an association. Social media not only allow you to know what people say,
but also enable you to respond to their comments or thoughts. When you are using social
media, first listen and then speak. Some of the key principles of social media are open
dialogue, authenticity and honesty. Social media is no more just the domain of business to
customer (B2C) market. It has now become a more popular communication channel for
business to business (B2B) market to create awareness, engagement and advocacies.
Top Ten Social Media Sites
Globally, interest and participation in social media is growing at a very rapid rate because
more and more people are getting connected through various social media platforms.
Though there are several social media websites, but the most popular and effective ones
have been explained below:
Facebook – Facebook has over a billion users and is the largest social network in use. It is an
effective online forum where you can create a personal profile and professional pages and
can share your life with others. This social networking site is used to make real life
connections.
Twitter – Twitter is the second largest networking site, having more than 250 million users. It
is a very user-friendly micro blogging site letting users post impressions, photos, links and
conversations in the form of “Tweets”. Some users are found tweeting all throughout the
day.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a professional networking site with at least 110 million users. This site
allows creating a professional profile, uploading your resume, making connections, joining
groups and searching jobs. This online platform is useful for professionals who are looking
for jobs and not for linking or bookmarking.
Pinterest – Pinterest is a network of bulletin boards on which people Pin photos with links to
external sources. It has around 85 million users and is mostly used for marketing,
interaction, SEO, business or crafts.
MySpace – MySpace has 70 million users and is used mostly for social networking around
entertainment, such as getting information about music, celebrities, etc.
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3. GooglePlus – GooglePlus is a social networking site hosted by Google. It has over 65 million
users. You can group connections into circles to organize your dashboards, host video chats
and follow trendy chats. Googleplus is more useful if you have Gmail or Blogger.
DevianArt – DevianArt is mainly an online networking site for artists and art lovers. More
than 25 million individuals are using this online platform.
Live Journal – Live journal is an online community website with about 20 million users.
People use this site to create personal blogs and connect with other bloggers in the
community. This site generally caters to young group of people.
Tagged – Tagged has 19,500,000 users and is a social discovery site allowing users to find
people and share mutual interest. This networking site came into existence in 2004 and
originally targeted high school students. But, with time, it has grown into a bigger
community.
Orkut – Orkut is also a social networking site with 7,500,000 users. At one time, this site was
used in India and Brazil the most. It was created by an employee of Google.
Social media benefits to businesses
Social media is one of the most useful marketing tools available today in the market. As a
business if you are not using then in your business, you are lagging behind in your line of
business. It offers new opportunities to engage customers, clients, targeted communities
and brand awareness initiatives to help grow and develop brand and services. These online
platforms help people to share and stay connected with one another anywhere in the world
at any point of time. Companies get the opportunity to join the conversation by connecting
with people through their social media accounts. If used wisely, it can help a growing
business to boost brand awareness, improve customer relations, enhance sales and expand
business.
Social media has no doubt, become an effective way to build businesses. For marketers who
are already having a good existence in their target market, it is a great addition to their
existing marketing plan. It creates positive return on investment (ROI) by generating more
customers. Businesses that widely engage in social media surpass their peers in both
revenue and profits. It must be treated as a great tool in terms of knowing the feedbacks
and requirements of the potential customers.
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4. The groups that are formed online can also become instant armies for businesses. They can
defend them when they face any social crisis. A company must take help of these online
tools because they get to know how their brand is being discussed by the customers. Social
media monitoring help businesses to gain customer insight, and determine brand’s
conversation share in the market and respond quickly to the issues. They can improve their
decision making by leveraging social media.
It has come to notice that businesses miss a lot on various fronts if they are not on social
media. Free networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are great ways to launch, or
market products online. So, a business must consider having an online presence to increase
its brand value and recognition.
How does Facebook helps a business?
Facebook is a free social networking service helping businesses to stay in touch with one
another all over the world. It is a very supportive social networking site and offers tools to
make things easy. It allows users to connect with a company by liking its “Fan Page”. A
company’s “Fan Page” is a place to post photos, questions, and news for your fans to
comment on. It is a page where the users can interact and talk directly to companies
through their fan page and post their comments and concerns. This methodology is very
helpful in solving the issues of customers in a more professional way. Facebook also has its
own analytical tools that allow it to track the posts and the days which receive most likes on
them. By using these analytical tools, businesses are able to measure their ROI and relate to
real time conversion rates.
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5. How does Twitter help a business?
Twitter is a micro blogging platform that allows people to post their day to day happenings.
The good thing about Twitter is that each tweet is limited to only 140 characters. So, every
message tweeted on Twitter must be short, interesting and to the point. Twitter is a good
networking website to pull good number of customers. It helps in engaging potential clients
to a business. “#Hashtags” are the used by customers to “tweet” about products and
services used by them of companies. If you are active on Twitter, your customers can even
“tweet” you directly by using your specific Twitter handle. This is going to help in getting
quick feedbacks from your potential customers. It also offers you an easy place to build
good relationships with your customers.
How Does Pinterest help a business?
Pinterest is Pin board-style social photo sharing site that allows users to create and manage
theme based image collections such as events, hobbies, interests, more information about
products and services etc. This social networking site is considered as a good tool for
marketing because a post can go viral within no time. Your followers will not only like your
post but will also be Re-Pining your post and would share it with other followers. Having a
presence on this networking site will benefit you a lot when you are launching a new
product in the market. When you are posting more about your products or your industry
related pictures, more consumers will see them and remember your brand.
Strategies used to make social media effective
Though it is well understood that many companies are yet to take full advantage of social
media, but companies using them are really getting good exposure for their businesses
through them. But, a business should have real-time strategies in place so that it can benefit
a lot from social networking sites. There are a few rules that they must abide by to get
maximum results.
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6. Rule 1: Choosing the right channel
A business should choose social channels sensibly so that they get the right platform for
promoting their products and services. For example, Twitter can be used as a place to give
industry news in brief, personal insights and quick and crispy responses to customer queries.
On the other hand, Facebook can be used for sharing and involving with customers by
posting links to presentations, photos of new products, and respond to the feedbacks from
the customers and clients. Similarly, you can use LinkedIn to showcase the professional
credentials of your business to your potential customers. Choosing right social networking
for the right marketing strategy is going to benefit a business in the long run.
Rule 2: Always make sure that you respond
Once you have signed up with social networking site, you must be ready to respond to any
communication that you receive. When you consistently respond or interact, you can
impress your existing and potential clients.
Rule 3: Remain true
When you are reaching out to large group of people or customers through different social
networking sites, ensure that you are showing them the real picture. You also need to
provide impressive content and discussions on networking sites so that more number of
people connect to you. You must try to enhance the perception of customers about your
brand by showing them the real picture.
Rule 4: Add widgets, tools and include applications
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7. Do a good research on applications, tools and widgets to increase your fan clubs. Simple
search on search engines like Google can help you in locating several quickly downloadable
interactive elements to add to your sites, right from voting polls to shopping baskets. These
additions can really make a big difference to your business.
Rule 5: Do not open multiple accounts
It is always recommended not to open too many accounts as you will have difficulty in
managing them regularly. Too many abandoned accounts will result in poor customer
experiences. It is going to impact your business adversely in the long run.
Rule 6: Allocate and provide social media guidelines to your staff
Invest in quality resources (employees) to look after your social media campaigns if you
want to maximize the value of using social media. They will aid you in responding to your
customers feedbacks honestly and would help you to track the results. Along with
employing good resources, you need to give them some guidelines that they need to follow
while working on social networking sites.
A few social media guidelines for business
With the rapid growth of the application of social media in business sector, companies are
using these online platforms. However, the companies must have a policy in place to ensure
that employees are sticking to it while using them. This will help them to understand the
expectations of a business, and also about their communication and behavior online. The
policy will provide clarity around the organization’s values and culture for their customers,
employees and public in general. It will also help in reducing the risks and provide legal
exposure for the business.
Sources for social media assistance
If you want to introduce social media into your business, you need to take help of a
professional company that caters to the social media needs of business. A good example of
this company is Credence Digital Marketing. There are dozens of digital marketing
companies in the market that help businesses use a number of social media strategies to
increase their brand reputation and awareness on different social media platforms. A
business needs to do a good research about these companies before hiring anyone of them
for their social media campaign.
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8. About Credence Digital Marketing
Credence Digital Marketing is a young digital marketing agency offering professional digital
marketing solutions to businesses spread across diversified spectrums. We have the
expertise to create an online approach that yields high returns on investment. Businesses
expecting to increase their social media presence prefer our services. We are a team of
qualified and experienced internet consultants.
Credence Digital Marketing is a one stop shop for all your digital needs. It offers
comprehensive range of integrated marketing solutions at affordable prices. We take the
lead in offering an array of digital marketing services such as SEO, SMO, Viral marketing,
Web Design and Development, Content Writing, Mobile App Development and Mobile
Optimization. If you are a new startup or a small business, we can make valuable difference
to your business. You will get better online visibility and promotion too. We are the experts
in the field of social media optimization and know all ethical tactics to direct more quality
visitors to your website. We have the knowledge and expertise to circulate your business
message among large groups of people.
Credence Digital Marketing works in accordance with the latest Google updates. We provide
bespoke SMO plans that are based entirely on the latest trends followed in online
marketing. We provide ethical services that cater directly to the requirement of our clients.
We work as professional internet consultants and promise a rapid ranking sequence.
Credence uses logical approach to improve the results.
When you hire social media optimization services or any other internet marketing services
from us, you are assured that your online business will experience a steady growth. We are
passionate about our work. We count clients on the first place. At Credence, we follow a
systematic approach way to offer exceptional services.
For more information on the Credence social media services, visit www.credencedigital.com.
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