What IS Social Media anyways? | Small Business Coaching
Danielle, I just don’t get it. It is all GREEK to me and none of this makes sense. What is social media? How does social media all go together? and WHY do I need it for my business? Can you explain it all to me please? – Kat
Sure! I would love to! The best way to explain is to first show you these two videos and then discuss each of the major social media components. I included a parody to try and explain it better!
Here is the first video. I am not responsible if it gets you really excited… it gets me every time!
Ok, so now that you are excited about what it can DO and how big it is from the video above…. lets try to break it down to a local level so you can apply it to your small business…
Basically it is broken down to these major components:
Website – Hosts everything!!!! It is like your PARENT and everything else You Tube, Facebook, Twitter, Digg) are the KIDS who bring the other neighborhood kids to your house. The more kids at your house, the more popular your house and you are the “coolest” on the “Pet Sitting or Dog Training street” The more popular you are, the easier it is for people to come to your house. You want people in your “house.” We are going to keep using this analogy.
Facebook– Place that has the LOUDEST voice that is calling kids into your home. Here, you have a DAILY interaction with your likers (kids) and are able to give them milk and cookies every day (like a “cool” parent would). There can be instant feedback and all the kids in your home have the best ability to call more people to your house (let’s say, on their “cell phones”) becasue of the SHARE buttons. Anytime something is posted on your website, it posts to Facebook, and then goes to Twitter.
You Tube – Videos… makes you come to life, lets you host your own channel, with all your branding around it. You can take these videos and bring them to your Website, and Facebook. They make you come ALIVE with being able to give a tour, a day in the life of, video biographies, highlighting products or services, or whatever you want. The possibilities are endless. People can “subscribe” to your channel, but the chances of this happening are very low on the scale. It is important to put in the RIGHT key words when uploading videos. Google holds you Tube Videos in HIGH ranking and they *will* come up when you do google searches if they are SEO’ed right (have the right key words) This is like kids at your house taking video and uploading them to the internet or to your Facebook/House to show everyone. This then results in more kids wanting to come to your house becasue it “looks” cool!
Twitter–Is for short conversations. Only 140 characters of less (like two sentences) Great points: to connect your website and facebook postings to it, becasue your followers might see what you are posting and click on it, therefor going to your website. You can update twitter as much as you want during the day becasue they are constant updates. However as a customer or client, few actually “follow” people. If you want to know what is going on with a business you can go to their Twitter page and read what they have been posting. How many people you are following doesn’t matter. to an extent. I would only recommend following people you want to keep in touch with or who are information resources. How many people follow you does matter. It tells how big your audience is. It is better to have quality than quantity. Think of this like kids being at your house and text messaging their friends to come over….there are just LOTS of text messages at a time.
Digg – Great information source again. This is depending on who “follows” you or “diggs” (sort of like a LIKE) your article. It is another way to connect your content to the world. People can be on Digg looking for information and go to the search box and pull up your info. Digg articles also show up on the search engines. Will this directly translate to customers? No. Will it possibly help with clicks to your site? Yes. Your Digg is connected to your site so any blog that is posted gets posted to Digg. Then it posts to Twitter. This is like a kid at your house throwing a newspaper out on the sidewalk and hoping that someone finds it.
Ok, so how does this all flow?
Website —> Facebook —>Twitter
Website —>Digg —-> Twitter
YouTube —>(gets posted on your Website)—->Facebook/Digg —–>Twitter
Posting Emails from icontact —-> Website —->Facebook/Digg —–>Twitter
Important things to remember:
*The more times links are out there with the CONTENT being hosted at your website, the BETTER chances of people clicking on your website.
*The more people who click on your website, the higher you will get in the the rankings.
*The more reviews you have, the more important you will be in the search engines.
*The more valuable content you post at a consistent pace, the more important you are to the search engines.
I hope this helps explain a little bit more… Let me know if you have any questions.
