What is Social Media?

Is Social Media Marketing a must for your business to start marketing in now, but you don't quite understand social media marketing or don't have the time to learn how to implement social media marketing? In this 3 parts segment, I'll help you to understand what social media is and briefly explain how beneficial it can be for your bottom line. Social Media marketing is now the most necessary form of promotion or branding for all online or offline businesses and when done right is the least expensive, but yet cost effective. This is a platform where an individual person or business can share info about anything thats trying to be communicated to people. An example would be like a product or service that a business offers, since people communicate with each other via these social media network sites this allows for information of a particular product or service to get heard about very quickly by other masses of people who are online on these social media network sites. Now more than ever, Social Media network sites are Hot and very popular. Did you know that a recent study showed that social media profiles get looked at first before email is even opened or thought about? There are several online social media outlets, but the more popular ones with the most traffic is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Google+, Pinterest and also multiple review sites. Blogs too, are a way to get word out about anything worth talking about. For business purposes a blog can be a way to get a businesses side of the story out about their product or service, plus blogs hook into the social sites so it gives you an opportunity to expand your audience about a product or service. Now, each social media site has a different audience than the other and is used differently according to its manner of use. Below is just a handful of the example social media websites that I spoke of above and how they are used and who they cater too. * Facebook - One of the most heavily trafficked social sites on the web yet this is quite a social site for talking about any and everything. (Recent study shows that more people now check their Facebook account first before they do there email.) * Twitter - Is the social site network that people use to mostly post a comment or complaint about a business. So being able to monitor and reply to such comments or complaints on on the Twitter Network social site is very important and could be critical to your businesses well being. * LinkedIn - This is strictly a social network of business professionals who are already in business or own their own businesses. The avg salary for Professionals who have a business profile on the LinkedIn Social network site is $107,000 per year or more. It is very critical and extremely important for your business to have a presence on the LinkedIn network website. In essence, LinkedIn is more of a social platform where businesses can connect with other businesses for products/services instead of consumers. If you don't have your business listed on this LinkedIn.com network then your business means nothing and will have no relevancy. Having your business profile on LinkedIn is like passing out your business card. * Review sites - These are sites that consumers go too, to look at opinions or info from past consumers about a product or service whether good feed back or bad feedback. (You constantly want to keep this monitored to know if your business is getting positive reviews or not. If there are bad reviews coming about then you should definitely have a social media manager to respond back positively for your company.) Finally, and in my opinion, even though Facebook.com is the most trafficked social site out of them all, I think that having a profile set up on the LinkedIn.com social media network would be much better for businesses from a business standpoint. If you want to know how to use social media, then read Part 2 entitled, "How to Use Social Media".