When it comes to online business services, did you know that according to our friends at econsultancy.com, social network interaction and blog reading represent the fourth most popular online activities, beating out personal e-mail. 10% of the time that we spend when interacting on the web is spent within social media sites. As a measure of the importance of social media sites, search engine giant Bing revealed that second in its list of the top 10 world trends for the year was Twitter. This just goes to show the sheer level of interest in social media and in this case, the new boy on the block Twitter. Just as it is important for you to “be” on Facebook, you must maintain a proactive presence on Twitter as well.
Twitter really occupies its own niche and is essentially a micro-blogging engine. Pretty much everyone now knows that you can send status messages of up to 140 characters through Twitter and this has really caught the interest of the business world. It is possible to notify clients about special deals, to handle customer relationship matters and to exhibit a sense of visibility that was previously unheard-of.
A Twitter presence for your online initiative should be more than just a straightforward account. Those who are serious about this medium create a targeted background design rather than the generic offering, set up their profiles and links correctly and really consider how to build followers. There are a number of tools available to you, many based on straightforward keyword research, enabling you to accurately target people who have said they are interested in your niche. Once again, as with Facebook, management and maintenance of your Twitter account will take a concerted effort. You should allocate time, ideally again on a daily basis, to create meaningful messages, a.k.a. tweets, and interact with others through direct messages. Note that the vast majority of members, corporate or otherwise, do not meaningfully interact through this medium and are certainly missing out. You should aim to be one of the educated few, who really take advantage of what this fantastic medium has to offer.
The world of Internet marketing is obviously dynamic, but it has changed almost beyond recognition in the last few years. Since the effective arrival of “web 2.0” and the social media revolution, marketing online has become much more of a subtle and thoughtful approach. These days you must put every effort you can into making a good name for yourself through a subtle and more considered approach, branding yourself as expert in the field. It is never advisable to try and hard-sell on Facebook and Twitter or other social media channels, and you should be very careful! In addition to your main sales hub, why not set up a blog to feed into it? By linking between your blog and your main sales hub, even if it means creating a subdomain within your website development to host the blog, you maintain separation while also taking into account potential sales.
You need to think about your very core operations. Education is critical as you expose your products or services to prospects. You may know how great your offerings are and may be convinced that they represent a great bargain for people out there in the real world. However, you need to convince others and this is where you must establish yourself and your organisation as experts. A blog is so important and must be well-designed, thought out and presented professionally. Generally, website development platforms such as WordPress are invaluable here, or you could choose to set up a content management system to start off with.
Michelle Dale is The Managing Director of Virtual Miss Friday, a state-of-the-art Executive Virtual Assistant Service which assists businesses and individuals with every aspect of their enterprising requirements. Do you want to explore these inspiring online business building success strategies? Contact VMF Now!
