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Social Networks-
Social Networks are a great way to garner interest in your website
without spending any money. A social networking service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging.
Online community services are sometimes considered as a social network service, though in a broader sense, social network service usually means an individual-centered service whereas online community services are group-centered. Social networking sites allow users to share ideas, activities, events, and interests within their individual networks.
Popular social networks include:
Blogspot,
Classmates.com,
delicious,
Facebook,
Google Buzz,
LinkedIn, Myspace,
and Twitter. Okay
you know all about social networks, but do you know how to advertise
your website and improve your website traffic using social networks?
PR professionals use social media every single day to get the word
out about clients, to communicate with customers and to respond to
questions or problems. Twitter, Facebook,
YouTube and other social sites
have quickly become important tools in a PR professional’s overall
toolkit.
The best idea is to join any social network that you can find,
especially any specialty networks like
LinkedIn that are made specifically for businesses to network. Users
understand members sign up to promote themselves for career
development first, their companies second. The quality of the
network you create lies in the quality of the contacts, not the
quantity. Another way to build your credibility on LinkedIn is by
participating in its Answers forum. For instance if you are a travel
agent you might want to visit the Business Travel section to see if
you can give any advice.
On any network you should always add a link to your business website
and if the site has any blogging opportunities you should blog as
often as possible and attach links or information about your website
when you can without becoming a total spammer. They are many online
communities made for specific groups of people like artists,
or pet lovers. Find these specialty groups that match your website
content and they will enjoy hearing your input.
Facebook:
The biggest bang for free advertising is Facebook. On Facebook you
can of course add the link to your website in your profile and even
make some comments with your link attached. But you can also add a
business page for free! Your free business page can get its
own set of followers and you can link your website page to Facebook
so that people can become a friend of your business Facebook page
directly from your website. You can use the Facebook badge button
that Facebook offers, or you can create your own button like the one
at the top of the page. Starting a business page is simple. Start at your main
page and on the left will be several options including ads and
pages. Click ads and pages then click create page. Facebook will
walk you through the rest. If you want to create a business badge to
display on your website, click on the Marketing Link on the left.
You can then choose to create a badge or add a like button to your
website.
ADD ME Buttons:
The Add Me
button is a free
javascript that you can add to any web page or blog:
The add Me button allows users to link the page onto
any of their favorite social networks, giving your web page a free
shout out and encouraging others to view it. If your web page is
interesting, with good content, chances are viewers will want to
click the add me button and share the link on their favorite social
network.
YouTube:
Creating a business video on Your Tube can go a long way in
advertising your website. You can make a tutorial or how to video or
a video relating to your business. Attach the video to a webpage in
your website and add some content on the page describing it.
Floridian Nature made a
video
page about Florida Nature, while Michael Arnold Art made a
YouTube Video of their
artwork
set to music.
Twitter:
Twitter offers you the option to "tweet' small tidbits of
information and gather followers. If you are good at tweeting, you
can send out a dozen or more tweets a day and work in something
about your website or busines in one or two of those tweets.
For the long term, the value for marketing on social networking
sites may be simply the ability to reach niche groups via
advertising. Most of these sites have targeted text advertising with
fees in reach of small businesses. |
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