Building Your Brand, Building Your Business: Social Media

Part 6 Social Media

According to the World Internet Usage Statistic, over 77% of the U.S. population uses the internet. The Nielsen Company reports that nearly 60% of internet users maintain a profile on some type of social networking site, and 70% read blogs and tweet out. Your business should go where your clients and audience are using these social platforms and start building and growing online relationships.

No matter how small or large your business, Social Media is now an important element to your Branding and nearly every business owner should be analyzing how they can use this technology to grow brand awareness. Not only do these platforms bring attention to your business, they bring you closer to your customers in ways we could not have imagined 15 years ago.

You can step into social media slowly by creating a blog, preferably as part of your website so people do not have to leave your site, and then search out other platforms that fit your networking needs. Use a variety of utilities like YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Get involved by either using your own website as a forum or start frequenting other forums and become an expert in answering questions that bring people to your own website for more information. Start a radio show, conduct a webinar, create a tutorial or video and post all of these technologies on all of your online marketing sites, including the social media utilities mentioned.

And above all…make sure your branding is consistent on all of those sites. Have a web and graphic designer customize your accounts both visually and with rich content to help the search engines index your multi sites and grow your businesses name out on the internet.