What Is Social Media?

What Social Networks Mean to Your Business?

Social Media – noun ( usually used with a plural verb ) Computers .
Web sites and other online means of communication that are used by large groups of people to share information and to develop social and professional contacts: Many businesses are utilizing social media to generate sales. -Dictionary.com

Social media, it’s in our lives. Before MySpace, Friendster, or Blogspot, we never imagined to use the world beyond the web. These pioneering websites has changed the workings of the web to where people can now seamlessly connect one with another and have real-time world-wide conversations. The point of people connecting to each other is not a problem–people embrace the internet. Facebook, alone, now carries 800+ million subscribers and they predict 1 billion by August of 2012. This mass social media movement also changed the way of business and sales.

Because people connect seamlessly over the internet, they carry open conversations on a variety of topics, especially those topics about goods and services. Face it, if you offer a fantastic product or terrible service, you will be the talk of the town… I mean the world. For better or for worse, one person can have an impact on your business, and it can cost hundreds, thousands, or millions of dollars. See, people connect to each other and businesses, well, businesses is still experimenting with how to connect to people.

Facebook provides fan and business pages for each organization, if the organization takes advantage of it. It’s a way for business to connect to people but this is still an experiment at play. People react to different products and how they are presented. For an example, If you have a men’s leather shoe and you create a Facebook profile for it, how will the public react? I cannot say but I do know this, it’s how you present your product or services on Facebook. Here’s a hint, though, the public will not react to a boring shoe page that involves men’s feet.

.advertisementLean Pockets, a year ago, launched a Facebook & YouTube campaign to promote their product. They decided to grab the audience’s attention through a weird campaign entitled, “A Moment With Heidi.” Videos on Facebook would show a young woman in the Alps, microwaves a lean pock, while having flash back memories during the wait. Then, viewers were asked to share their microwave moments on the Facebook comment box. This campaign was ok, well, they did get 100,000+ likes to where Lean Pockets can do free advertising.

Now here is a bad example of what not to do with a social media campaign. See, when you make mistakes, they are best to learn from but remember, you can set the social media world a blazed if you do the wrong thing. Mashable.com points to this scuff from Motrin,

Motrin decided that it would be smart to launch a social media campaign for International Baby Wearing Week by producing a well-made YouTube video. However, they didn’t anticipate the backlash. Moms were not pleased with babies being made into fashion statements and Motrin got an earful from the Internet community.

The lesson learned in this situation is to do your research and know your audience.

Social networking for businesses is like science. There is no right or wrong answer, only hypothesis that turn into theories, and can turn to facts. It’s what you make of it. If the message is clear, you will know because the public will react… they always react.