Social Media is just a fad

Yep, you are right Social Media is a fad. It will disappear just like Pet Rocks, flagpole sitting, Garbage Pail Kids, and well you get the idea. Soon something else will take the place of Social Media, much like it is taking over search and other areas of the web.

How are people finding the information they need today? Are they finding it in places like Google, Yahoo, or another search engine? I would say that the search engines still have a pretty strong hold on this, for now. Though Social Media isn’t far behind. Let me give you an example. A few months back I was looking for an e-commerce/shopping cart option that was easy to use and also SEO friendly. I spent a few moments digging into Search Engine Land, just to come up empty, like a glass on a hot summers day. I turned to my Twitter followers and asked the question, and I continued to search on my favorite search engine. Within minutes I was getting all kinds of suggests to look up. Some of these weren’t even on the first few pages of results page. Read more

How to use social media for marketing purposes

You may have heard it’s a good idea to use social media to market your business but you’re not sure how to do this. Before you dive into the social media world, the first hurtle is to know if you can update content on a continuous basis. The second hurtle is if your products or services can attract the social media audience. This blog addresses the later.

Here are a few professional BtoC Facebook pages:

Seventh Generation, The Gap, Cheetohs, Starbucks, Pizza

What do the above Facebook pages have in common? If you said, popular topics, you are correct. The best social media pages are made from general topics people love to use or talk about. Sustainability, clothing and food are some of these topics. How do you create a popular Facebook pages for your small or medium sized business? Create a page on a general topic and promote your company in the Info tab. Create an individual tab with html and the FBML include and promote your company this way. Make this tab your Default tab so users see this first when viewing your Facebook page. If you have an HTML guru on your staff use that person otherwise it pays to hire a professional.

Here are a few successful Twitter pages:

Oprah, Ellen Degeneres, or go to 25 of the best designed Twitter pages

What do the above Twitter pages have in common? The Tweets are daily or multiple times a day, they utilize the background image to promote the product (Oprah herself, Ellen’s sound stage or a craft via design elements) and they customize the URL to promote the name of the person or company. Use your Twitter background to promote your craft, like this typography Twitter page or your company, like this freelanceer’s Twitter page.

Best Practices for hosting a social media site:

1. Always interact with your fans. Always post manual updates and respond to comments as soon as you can. The point of a social media page is being social, right?

2. Don’t create a page unless it’s professional. Research what makes the best social media page then jump into creating one.

3. Don’t create a social media page unless you can update it every few days.