What only 20? Well, it’s 20 really good reasons. Seriously, study this post. It covers all the keys.
This list of 20 reasons is a great primer for anyone who’s trying to understand social media. It covers all of the key subject areas. These are just the headings. To read the full post click the link at the end. (I’ve underlined the bits that I think are most important.)
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- Branding
- Create a buzz
- Online reputation management
- Establish yourself as an expert
- Word of mouth
- Build relationships and become more personal
- Open up the line of communication between business owner and millions of potential customers
- Small businesses can compete with the large companies
- Social networking with potential clients and customers from all over the globe
- Get great traffic - Not only great traffic…. but freakishly crazy amounts of traffic.
- Increase your link-ability
- Helps with search engines - Link juice from a quality site = higher ranking in the search engines.
- Much cheaper than traditional marketing and advertising
- Your company is more accessible - An accessible company means a more trustworthy company.
- Direct conversation to a specific niche - There are so many social networking, social bookmarking, and social news sites that are dedicated to specific niches. You have the ability to speak directly to these people and not have all the other noise of unrelated topics getting in the way. If you are speaking their language, you have a better chance of them actually hearing what you are saying - and you’re getting the RIGHT KIND of following.
- Provides another way for potential customers to find you - If you’re not high enough in the search engines for potential customers to find you, they can still find you through social media. So, even if you’re not on the front page of Google, it doesn’t mean you can’t receive traffic. Social Media has the potential to send you TONS of traffic - when done properly (I’ll write more on that soon!).
- It’s a way to explain yourself - One of the reasons some businesses are skiddish about social media is because they’re afraid of negative comments. It’s possible to receive negative comments. But, social media provides the platform to explain, to make things right. The fact of the matter is - if someone has something negative to say they can say it. Ignoring them doesn’t stop the damage. But, when you reply, you are seen as a business owner who cares, who wants to make the customer happy, and that you’re human. Social media is a two-way conversation, so go ahead and defend yourself - just do it proactively.
- Show Your Stuff
- Find out exactly what your customers want - Social media is amazing in so many ways, as you can see from the last 18 reasons. But, what is so cool is that you don’t have to wonder what your customers want. You want to know what they want? Ask them on social media, and they’ll tell you.
- Your customers can play an active role in the business - Instead of focus groups, let your customers play an active role in your business. Let them offer suggestions, let them share their likes and dislikes - all on social media. You might find yourself ideas for new products and services you’d never have without them.
Bottom line - marketing is about getting out the word, engaging in conversations, taking suggestions, problem solving, educating your audience, and promoting your company, product, or service. One of the best ways for small businesses to create buzz is through social media.
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This list is from Shana Albert who blogs at http://www.socialdesire.com. This was a guest post on the blog BlissfullyDomestic.com.
And here’s number 21 - Social Media is the future - The sooner you get used to it, the further ahead you will be.
Social PR expert Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism is a great overview of the rapidly expanding Social Media space.
This is a simplistic, but very attractive overview. 
It’s a good start, but it doesn’t help with understanding, and in the few months since it’s original publication in August, 2008 it’s aready a bit dated.. In any case, this attractive graphic has become very popular in slide decks.
Brian breaks the Social Spectrum down into the following groups of tools, services, communities, and networks:
- Social Bookmarks
- Comment & Reputation
- Crowdsourced Content
- Blog Platforms
- Blogs/Conversations
- Blog Communities
- Micromedia
- Lifestreams
- Twitter Tools
- SMS/Voice
- Social Networks
- Niche Networks
- Customer Networks
- Location-specific
- Videos
- Documents
- Events
- Music
- Wiki
- Livecasting
- Photos
- Bookmarks
Read Brian Solis’ original blog post on the Conversation Prism here.
Posted by Daniel Endy at 12:00 AM.
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Demonstrating a solid command of technology and communications, the Obama administration is hitting all the right notes as it delivers a technical symphony. This administration understands technology better than 99% of most businesses! From YouTube, to Twitter, to Blogging, to Podcasting, The Obama campaign and administration is totally cutting-edge with social media. And, all indications are that this competence isn’t limited to technology.
YouTube? He’s got his own channel - BarackObamaDotCom with over 1,800 videos.
Twitter? He’s got over 144,000 followers for Twitter.com/BarackObama.
They even created a special Twitter account for the Inaugural - Twitter.com/obamainaugural. It was created on December, 22nd and has over 14,000 followers.
Of course Twitter can be too limiting at times. Well, um yeah, they created a Tumblr blog for the inaugural too.
Regular Blogs? The Campaign site has it’s own blog which was still being updated on Inauguration day. And now we have the Whitehouse blog.
Live streaming? Well, they’ve had a UStream channel for Live Campain Coverage for quite a while. And they created a special channel for Barack Obama Inuaguration Day Live. Not only was the inauguration carried on UStream, they created a special UStream iPhone application so you could watch it on your iPhone.
Podcasting? The Official Barack Obama Podcast (in video and audio-only formats), Your Weekly Address from the President Elect (video), and President Obama Radio,
Web Sites? There’s the campaign site www.BarackObama.com. The Presidential Inauguration Committee Site www.PIC2009.com. And now there’s www.Whitehouse.gov with it’s own blog.
Mobile? Text HOPE to 62262 (obama)
Private Social Network - My.BarackObama.com. This is perhaps the most significant piece of work listed here. It enabled the Obama campaign to capture info on millions of supporters, enabled them to organize, raise funds, and share info.
And last but not least, the Obama campaign/administration is on all of the popular Social Networks - Facebook Groups - LinkedIn Group - MySpace - Flickr - Digg and many others.
Is there anything the Obama administration can’t do? I am beginning to doubt it. They have not drawn a line and said, we can’t/won’t do X. They are doing it all, and they are doing it very well.
Posted by Daniel Endy at 10:53 PM.
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Ben Huh, the guy behind ICanHasCheezBurger.com, created a community which now numbers over 1 million unique visitors a month, all from funny cat pictures with captions. I kid you not. He knows what he’s talking about. His monthly uniques almost tripled in 2008.
How did he do it? Well, here are 15 of his top tips.
One of the web’s most unique sites also comes with the most unusual name, I Can Has Cheezburger (dot-com). The name comes from one of the captions on the jillions of crazy cat pictures found on the site. You can browse the pictures, copy them to your site/blog/profile, or create your own funny caption in 3 easy steps. (And remember cats have poor grammar and spelling abilities.)
Ben knows what he’s talking about. Here is a summary of his 15 keys to building a community. The link to the full post is at the bottom.
1. Convert Casual Users into Fans
The number one rule of creating a great community is to enable people to share the positive experience that they’ve had on your site. Your aim should be to convert casual users into fans because fans are the ones that will share your content with others.
2. Love on Your Existing Fans, but Not Too Much
3. Empower your Users
4. Make More People Happy
5. Stop Engineering and Start Thinking About the Market
6. Don’t Skimp on Great Content
7. Provide Ways to Give Feedback
8. Power of Little
Offer users lots of small, simple things to do on your site that don’t require login, such as rating, commenting, saving a favorite, creating an account and finally (hopefully) they will do the most difficult thing of all, contribute to your site.
9. Encourage ‘Thefting’
10. Be Willing to Prune Your Community
11. Measure the Number of Shared Experiences, not Users
12. Shared Experiences = Goodwill
13. Create Info Porn
People love to look at data about themselves. It the reason why there is a mirror in practically every elevator that you’ve been in. If you have data about your user’s behavior on your site then show it to them. Update it on a daily basis and they will come back on a daily basis. One of the most popular pages on Lol cats is the page that tells people how many ‘fans’ they have.
14. Don’t Pay Contributors
15. Don’t Confuse Sharing with Marketing
When your users share content with others they are not marketing. They don’t even think about it in that way and in turn you shouldn’t treat them as marketers. Don’t force marketing messages at them, it will burn their trust.
See the full post here.
Here’s a link to his site’s unique visitor stats for 2008 at Compete.com.
Check out www.ICanHasCheezburger.com here.
This is just a summation. For the original post and comments check this link to the Interactive Insights Group blog.