Social Media…There Is More to It Than Facebook
By Laura Everett
When someone says “social media,” what is the first thing that comes to mind? For those who have not yet immersed themselves into social media or are just beginning, their response will inevitably be “Facebook.” The reason for this is very simple — Facebook is the number one social networking site in the world. Without a doubt, they have the numbers — more than 200 million active users and over 100 million daily visitors. It is the most popular Web site (with Twitter quickly gaining in popularity as well) devoted to social media. However, just because it is the most popular social networking site does not mean it makes up an effective social media marketing campaign. In fact, it is quite the opposite. While having a personal profile and a corporate Facebook page is important, it is only one tiny piece of a much bigger puzzle.
An effective social media marketing campaign encompasses many different sites and tools. The most effective programs are grounded in strong social media optimization (the cousin to search engine optimization) and focus on driving more qualified traffic to your Web site.
First things first, you need to have quality Web site. There is no point in investing the time and money to bring more traffic to your Web site if there is nothing there to engage visitors and keep them on your site. The site needs to be easy to navigate and interactive, and it always helps to be visually appealing as well. In addition, the website needs to be optimized for the keywords you are trying to target.
The next most powerful tool you can add to your social media campaign is a corporate blog. The blog, as long as you start your own blog and don’t utilize one of the free sites, gives you complete creative freedom to drive more traffic to your site. In addition, you’ll be able to reach a greater number of people that may have never found your company before through the use of your blog.
Online public relations is another vital part for a social media campaign. As long as you are familiar with the free sites that offer live links and push power to your Web site or blog, this is one of the easiest ways to increase referring URLs. You should also utilize social bookmarking sites, like Digg and Del icio us, to make your online news stories more popular.
And, yes, put your company on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But keep in mind that an effective social media marketing campaign is not as simple as I am describing. I am using this blog post just to demonstrate that Facebook is only one small part of social media and not the cornerstone of a campaign. You need to be able to put your company and brand online in many places and be sure they are all linked together. But if you do not know what you are doing, you may actually be hurting your rankings in the search engines, which is why it is always best to seek help from social media experts, like mRELEVANCE.
Laura Everett is an expert in blogging and Social Media. Everett works in real estate and related business-to-business public relations. She successfully manages several top real estate industry blogs, including AtlantaRealEstateForum.com, CarolinaRealEstateForum.com, GreenBuiltBlog.com, FiftyPlusHousing.com, LuxuryRealEstateForum.com, and ChicagolandRealEstateForum.com.
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