Social Media, Your Business and Your Bottom Line

Here's the intro article for On-Site Technical Solutions latest online monthly newsletter - we'll have that published in a day or two!

Social Media, Your Business and Your Bottom Line

Do you have a personal Facebook page? Does your business? Are you Twittering yet for business or pleasure or both? How many videos have you posted to YouTube? Do you have a LinkedIn profile and is your business on Merchant Circle?

However you answer those questions, expect your family and your business to become much more involved in social media. Making light of Twitter and the twits using it might be fun, but social media and networking are serious, big businesses and will be impacting your business and your bottom line.

By now you have a web site that is either integrated into your sales and marketing process or is simply an online business card. Without a website a business does not exist to most of the population - every business that wants more customers has a website that is a necessary component of any marketing plan. Expect that marketing plan to include social media in the near future if it doesn’t already.

Some of the more prominent social media tools for businesses include:

• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Merchant Circle

Facebook has more than 300 million users and grows by hundreds of thousands every day. While the demographics for Facebook were originally skewed to the student population, that has rapidly changed. The typical Twitter user is not from gen-Y, but is 30-54 years-old. They are your customers and you’re going to need social media to connect with them and grow your business.

Search engines LOVE social media. If you’re on LinkedIn you already know that entering your name in Google Web Search will give you a first page link for your name. Search engine optimization (SEO) for your website and business is going to get much more difficult without incorporating social media into your marketing plan. The search engines also love Merchant Circle – you need to be there!

Social Media Policy

Because of the growth of the social media phenomena every business should begin thinking about a formal Social Media Policy. Businesses already using Facebook, LinkedIn et al. should already have a written policy governing the use of these media. But even businesses not using social networks should at least incorporate social media use into existing Internet use policies – be proactive. Don’t have an Internet use policy? Better get that done first!

We’ll be talking much more about social media and networking. Please call or text Michael (1-949-212-2168) if you have any questions about social media or you’d like to set up a time to talk about it. If you have no idea what it’s all about or you already have sophisticated plans in place, feel free to call, text, email or comment on our blog at www.on-sitetechnicalsolutions.blogspot.com.

You should follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mhboys

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