SOCIAL MEDIA DEFINED

Social media has become the largest and fastest-growing sharing and advertising medium of modern Internet technology. What exactly is social media? And what's the point?

Social Media Defined

Social media networks are primarily Internet, and now, mobile device based tools for sharing and discussing information among individuals. Social media basically is a building of a community where people share information, technology, ideas and opinions, video and music, all through social interaction with others. The success of a social media network depends solely on the interactions between its participants.

This medium is infinite - there is no ending point to social media, and no limitations: there is not a set number of pages or hours. Individuals can participate in social media any time day or night by adding comments, videos, and instant messaging, or even editing and adding to the stories themselves.

The theory of social media is not difficult to understand; blogs, forums, customer review sites, and social networks all function the same way, meaning that people (consumers) are sharing their opinions and experiences about every aspect of being a consumer. Social media networks are a forum where people talk about anything and everything, any company, any product and service that you can imagine. You've heard it said, "You are only as good as what your unhappiest customer says about you" - with today's technology, what your customers say about you can spread around the globe. Word of mouth is still the best advertising tool in any business. Conversations via social media spread around the world in seconds, and can influence sales and a company's reputation in much less time than it took to build it.

Simply put, social media is not just a chat room any more; it has exploded with the combination of online consumer and business dialogue, with the technology and delivery of the Internet as its pipeline.


Blogs and Microblogs

The word "blog" is short for the term "Web Log", and is basically a site that is maintained by an individual, rather than a corporation or business. It is most commonly used as a personal diary with regular entries of commentary, reviews of events, products and services; people use blogs to talk about their hobbies and also their business or industry.

Your blog is whatever you want it to be; there's really no limit as to what you can express or share. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules. However, it doesn't end with just the author's commentaries; readers have the ability to leave comments and have interactive dialog with anyone reading that particular blog.

Whereas most blogs are primarily textual, some are based on photography (photoblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), and all are part of a wider network of social media.

Micro-blogging is another type of blogging and is a relatively new form of communication in which users can write updates and post their current whereabouts in short posts. Microblogging was introduced in 2007 and is another form of multimedia blogging that allows you to send short text updates, in 150 words or less. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, emailing, etc.

The content of a microblog differs from a traditional blog simply because it is shorter in content and smaller file size; however, it is the same in that people utilize it for both business and individual reasons. Many microblogs provide a short commentary on a person-to-person level, or share news about a company's products and services. Probably the most well-known site for microblogging is Twitter, which was originally built so its members could post and receive updates (or "tweets") via SMS text message. Because it was designed to be used on mobile devies, the distinguishing feature of Twitter is its 140 character limit on each message. Other popular microblogging sites include Plurk, Jaiku, Facebook, and Tumblr.

Aggressive SEO professionals include the use of microblogging in their strategies to boost site traffic; and if you are an active blogger, creating a microblog to announce updates or teasers to your full-length blog, along with embedded links that will take readers directly to your site, will not only boost both traffic and but also assist in increasing your search engine ranking.


Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata. Social bookmarking isnt just for personal organization; the way this form of social media works is that as you add web pages to your social bookmarking system, they become public, and can be shared only with other people or groups. Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with tags, which enables viewing other bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and includes information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. As social bookmarking services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features.


Social Media Optimization

Social media marketing employs similar functionality as that of Search Engine Optimization. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get already-established content distributed more widely across many social media platforms. These optimizations include adding links to service providers such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us.

There is an off-page tactic of social media marketing, which includes writing content that is compelling, unique and remarkable to its viewers. Once this content is written, it can be marketed in many different ways utilizing social media as the catalyst. Due to the fact that social media connotes being social, this work can include becoming involved in other aspects of similar social media platforms including blogs, forums and other related communities.

Social media has grown tremendously since the term was coined nearly ten years ago. Companies are starting to realize that the power of word of mouth, viral marketing, and social media marketing have become one of the most powerful ways to reach consumers and engage them. A prime example of this is Microsoft Corporation's attempt to harness the power of social media through its patent pending TIPIS (The Influential Persons Identification System). Microsoft has now realized the power of social media and has started looking at ways to seek and identify major influencers within social networks.

Social Media Marketing

Understanding of what social media is will help you understand what social media marketing is. Social media marketing meshes word of mouth (WoM) advertising with promoting a site, business or brand through social media channels and by interacting with existing and/or potential consumers.

Word of mouth marketing has been a long-standing form of social marketing. As the development of new social communities and sites grow, the ability to spread a message through word of mouth marketing increases. A major element of the success of your business is, undeniably, what consumers are saying about your company, product and services. Fellow consumer's opinions are more trusted than corporate advertisements; social media marketing is about building ways that happy customers, "fans" of a brand or company, can promote the brand themselves in multiple online social media venues.

Monitoring the conversations about your business, product or service is just as beneficial as word of mouth advertising. The most common way of monitoring conversations or "mentions" about your business is by setting up an automatic notification via email. Most e-mail providers (Google, AOL, Yahoo, MSN) have a built-in "alert" features that will notify you via email each time your pre-defined keyword or key phrase is used in blogs, online articles, websites, etc. By receiving these notifications, you can read what people are saying about you – positive or negative. If it's positive, take the time to respond with appreciation; if it's negative, it is in your best interest to take the opportunity to correct the situation. By interacting with the public through social media outlets, you will gain the trust of Internet users and search engines.

Actively promoting your website or business will also increase your social marketing opportunities. Creating a consistent, professional profile on multiple social media sites will enhance your online presence; but you once you have your profile established, don't stop there. Interaction is the name of the game in social media and you will find that plugging your own business won't be enough. Reading and commenting on both colleagues' and competitors' blogs will only help gain momentum in your marketing strategies. Not only will you be sharing information about your products and services, but also you will gain insight as to what customers are saying about the competition.


How Social Media Marketing Differs From Traditional Marketing

Social media marketing is quite distinct from the traditional marketing modalities of newspapers, television, radio and print. Social media marketing tends to be a relatively inexpensive tool that allows anyone to share and/or access information easily. Traditional media tends to be relatively expensive and to reach a mass audience, would have a need for large financial capital.


Social Media Measurement

Actively participating in social media is extremely beneficial, and soon won't be a choice in your marketing strategy. With the increased popularity of social media outlets, there are also modalities designed to measure the impact of this marketing tool. By properly monitoring you will be able to identify and engage with your customers, measure your campaign spending and ROI, develop products that consumers are looking for, monitor your competition; identify fraud, and most importantly, manage your reputation.