Wednesday, 10 October 2012

Why Your Business Needs A Facebook Fan Page



Facebook pages are the most widely used Facebook applications by most businesses ranging from small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to large corporations. The social media marketing aspect of pages offer great advantages to organizations both as communication and branding tools. Here are five good reasons why your business will need a Facebook fan page. 

Increased visibility and SEO impact
Facebook fan pages rank well on Google and other search engines and that translates to increased visibility for your business. By sharing lots of URLs on your Facebook page, you can get a massive SEO boost which translates to better rankings for your pages. Like the website and the blog, a Facebook fan page is a highly versatile portal that you can use to share lots of information and articles.  

Easy to brand and build
The Facebook fan page is relatively easy to build and brand with your corporate creatives. Besides, you can easily grow your Facebook community by inviting friends and colleagues and through the highly efficient Facebook advertising services that allows you to target Facebook users based on the demographics and geographical location. It is possible to build a community of hundreds of thousands of fans with a small budget. You can then leverage this community to and sell your products and services and increase the brand reputation of your enterprises. 

Measurable
Businesses looking for a measurable medium for social media engagement can take advantage of Facebook’s robust insights. These allow them to easily measure the ROI of their Facebook marketing campaigns. The Facebook analytics offer insights into the number of page views, conversions, CPC, money management features for Facebook ads amongst other functionalities.
Integrates with lots of apps that add value to your business.

Facebook fan pages have the widest variety of apps support.  You can find Facebook fan page apps that you can embed on the website, apply on social commerce, amongst other interesting uses. Today almost every web service has a Facebook integration app that you can use to harmonize the services and offer your fans a powerful Facebook fan page experience. 

Allows you to build relationships
Businesses that are looking for ways to build relationships through social media can take advantage of the Facebook fan page’s unique interface that allows users to easily interact with the brand. Businesses can get in touch with their most passionate fans and sign up on their offers or turn them into powerful brand ambassadors.

What Is Social Media?



Nowadays, social media is the most widely spoken terminology and it has been tossed around across every country; still, there is no concrete definition of social media. It is composed of so many activities that they are collectively referred to as social media. People who want to understand the concept have to make sure that they explore various forms of it so that they have an idea about the activities that are classified as social media such as bookmarking, social media marketing, social networking, Search Engine Optimization and many more.

What is the meaning of social media?
Since there is no concrete definition of social media so it is broken done into social and media; media is the instrument that is used for communication purposes such as newspapers, magazines, radio, Television, websites and many more. For social media to be done online there is a need of website that will give you information and even allow interaction so that information exchange is an effective and two way process. In media, there is only one way communication as information is provided; while, in social media, there is two way communication for interaction purposes.

Guide to social web
Is there any similarity between social news and social media? There is a lot of difference between them; social news refers to news members as the media in which information is provided to various people. However, social news site falls in the category of social media site and therefore, it is one form of social media. Other forms of social media are social networking sites, Wikis, online encyclopaedias, blogs, informative websites and various other sites that help in retrieving valuable information about various things happening worldwide.

Some of the best social media websites
Realizing the growing role and importance of social media, people these days are provided ample opportunities to use such mediums with full enthusiasm. Since social medium comprises of so many aspects and is a relatively broader terminology, there are many websites that fall in the category of social media websites such as social news like Propeller, Reddit and Digg that do interaction by articles’ voting and comments on them. 

Social bookmarking like Blinklist, Simpy and Del.icio.us that do interaction by websites’ tagging and doing search through websites that are bookmarked by other people; social photo and video sharing like YouTube and Flickr that allow interaction by sharing photos and videos along with comments on them and social networking sites such as Hi5, LinkedIn and Facebook by which interaction among friends is possible and there are various discussion forums along with groups.

Friday, 5 October 2012

What Is The Value Of Like Buttons?



In Facebook and other social networking sites, when you find something interesting, relevant and worthwhile, you are given three options: you can hit the “like” button, you can post a comment or you can choose to share the same link on your own wall. This has been a godsend for pretty much every social media agency out there. Hitting the “like” button is the most basic reaction that users can convey to each other. It says: “I like what you posted!”, “I agree with what you said”, “This is absolutely hilarious!”, “This is amazing!” and so forth. That simple gesture can mean so much and since it was introduced, the “like” button has evolved greatly.

Today, you can find “like” buttons everywhere. It is all over Facebook, in websites and it exists in various forms all over the internet. Most things are now provided with a “like” button. It has become valuable because a single hit can do so much:

·         It gauges and signifies the popularity and relevance of a post. Whether it is pertaining to a person, a place, a thing, an event, a statement or whatnot; when you something receives a considerable amount of likes, it means it is relevant.

·         In contests, the “like” buttons have now become very useful to tally votes. Online contests now rely on participants to call on their own friends, family and personal contacts to “like” their post and the total number is considered by the judges. This gives the voters an easy way to convey their vote, participants to obtain them and judges to count. 

·         You can now embed and install the same “like” buttons on your own website. To connect the social networking sites with your website and to be able to put a name and a face to every interest you generate in your website, you can encourage them to hit the “like” button just they would normally do in Facebook and all the others. 

·         It increases the awareness of people and it improves the visibility of the particular post or update because when a person hits “like” it automatically is announced on their wall, so their own contact get to see and read your post.

·         It is the “modern word of mouth”. As this is a modern world it operates o modern techniques and strategies, and the “like” button can easily play the role of what used to be called a traditional marketing and advertising strategy, “word of mouth”, where positive people-to-people transfer conveys feedback.

In the internet, you have to find creative ways to make yourself known because it is such a vast space where limits are unknown.

Best Social Media Applications



If there is a multitude of social media sites, there are just as many social media applications. What are applications for? These are software that allows users do certain tasks. There are specific applications used in gaming, in education, in navigation, music, sports and in virtually anything that people may be interested with. Most of the time, people only connect it to mobile phones; however, these apps are also available in different forms of media like the computer. It is really hard to create a ranking of all the applications across the world, for you have to perform a worldwide survey. However, here are some of the best social media applications that millions of people are using:

Instagram

This is one of the best – if not the best – among the social media applications that involve sharing of photos. Only one year since its first appearance online, it has gained an impressive number of subscribers already. The fun with Instagram is you can take pictures, apply digital filters and share it with anybody whom you are connected with. Nowadays, you will hear people talking about Instagram when they discuss about pictures.

Spotify

Applications for music have their own share of the web, too. Spotify allows its users to search for songs, listen to it, and for desktop users, purchase it. It is available mostly in European countries and in the United Sates, and it is very surprising how the number of subscribers is still big. The application may be accessed using different computer programs and various mobile devices.

Path

This application for photo sharing is available for mobile devices. The things you can do using this app are actually very similar with what you do when you post pictures on Facebook. However, the goal of Path is to focus on sharing pictures with the people closest to you. In actuality, you, as a user, are not allowed to add as many people as you want in your account network. That is to maintain sharing of pictures only to those whom you really know. You can tag people in the picture, share comments and perform other commands.

Voxer

What is a more interesting way of sending a message that what people already do on Facebook messaging? The makers of Voxer thought that perceptible voices of senders are better than the text form. After its launching up to now, Voxer has been receiving positive notes. It has surely revolutionized the way how people send messages to each other.

How To Use Social Media To Build Your Brand



Businesses are increasingly investing more of their advertising budget into social media, due to the growth in the application of social media tools for marketing. Businesses can tap into these tools to effectively manage their online presence while building powerful online portals, along with an engagement strategy that can have an extremely positive impact on their online reputation. While presentation is very important, social media branding is really about engagement and the building of meaningful relationships online. Businesses that can engage and connect with their core fan bases are already building very powerful online brands. A powerful social media brand is the one that users will run to when they are looking for some useful information about your products and services or when they need to make some urgent inquiries.  There are several steps that a social media agency can take in order to build a powerful brand on social media that everybody will want to be associated with.

Branding your online portals
The first step to building your social media brand literally involves branding your social media channels. You need to build online portals like Twitter profiles, Facebook pages, corporate blogs, and YouTube channels and splash them with your corporate colors. This is a small but very significant step in corporate branding using social media tools.  It is also important to assign one or two consistent voices behind the social media channels that will interact with your clients on a regular basis. 

Social media engagement to build your online brand
This will be a core part of your social media branding. You need to have meaningful engagement with your target audience on a regular basis so as to add value and enhance their experience with your brand. One way to accomplish this is by having regular meaningful conversations with your clientele. You can use this not just as a promotional tool but a powerful customer service tool. Having a sound social media policy will also guide and inform your engagement with your customers at this level. 

Connecting with your influencers
Traditional marketing has always relied on key influencers to drive the message home. The same scenario applies when it comes to social media. It is crucial that you connect to key influencers on the social media channels who can amplify your marketing messages. People trust them and will follow their recommendations particularly if they discuss your brands positively within their networks.