Social media has become every nation’s access to possibly everything that happens around the world. From networking sites to sharing photographs and interests, social media indeed has become an essential tool in each individual’s life. It even caters to a diverse colony of interests and activities.
What Started it All
In 1979, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis established a system that allowed users to post blogs and articles. This was referred to as the Usenet Systems. This system was responsible for the progressive development of newsreader clients. Several sites such as Google and Yahoo utilize upgraded conventions that were originally established by the early Usenet systems.
In 1970, the first ever BBS or Bulletin Board Systems was introduced to the virtual world. A personal computer was used to dial-in to a phone modem. BBS was the pioneer in social interaction sites. It has its limitations though, only one person at a certain time can access the site. While it paved the way for social interaction in the virtual world, it was also used as a panel discussion for shady subjects, like pornography, virus codes and hacking instructions.
In 1988, social media went a notch higher through the launching of the IRC .It allows users to share files and links. It is quite the ancestral father of modern instant messengers being used today.
The Birth of Social Networks
Dating sites were the bridge for the development of social networking. It allowed users to interact with people they do not know yet and share pictures with one another. In 1997, the first modern social networking site was introduced to the virtual onlookers, the Six Degrees. It had a fiery beginning and was purchased for 125 million dollars in 2000. But the spark died out soon, as it was shut down in 2001.
Social Network at its Peak
Friendster was established in 2002 and instantly became a worldwide hit. It was considered as the first ever-general social network. The thought of getting to know a lot of people and making new friends through the Internet sparked the interest of millions of users, with 90 percent coming form Asia. It even became a dating site for most of its users.
In 2003, another social networking site similar to Friendster was established, the Hi 5. It operates a little bit differently compared to Friendster. It provided users with more comprehensive networks, including second and third degree contacts.
Myspace was established in 2003 and became very famous in 2006. Aside from the social interaction, it allows users to customize their pages. They can even include videos and MP3s to complement the design of their profiles.
In 2004, a Harvard exclusive social network site boomed into popularity, the Facebook. And in 2008 and up to date, it continues to be the fastest growing and the largest networking site that was able to surpass its predecessors. It has continued to progress over the years allowing its users to have a more exciting virtual meet up. From the chat rooms, your wall post, news feed on the current updates of your friends and options for privacy; it has indeed become everyone’s constant companion.
So you have decided to advertise your business on social networking sites. Good move! Of all the networking sites existing today, the best place to advertise would be on Facebook since more than 90% of the majority population has an account there. This means a great increase on your chances of being able to reach a wide range of customers and clients. But be careful, if you do not make the right choices, you might fall into the trap of a flopped online advertising scheme. To avoid that, here are a few tips to help you out.
Signing up your business for a Facebook account is probably one of the best moves to advance your marketing advantage. Facebook in itself is like a big web of networks, where you will get the chance to get connected to not only your target clients but also to their friends and family. You do not even need to put in too much effort to reach your target audience in Facebook. But to make sure your account will not go to sleep mode after the first few weeks, the first step at being remembered is getting a vanity URL. You can do this at the first few steps on sign up, so be sure you are ready with your brand or business name. Do not settle for the pre-assigned URL that consists of a bunch of numbers and letters, you will be less likely remembered that way. Use your business name if possible, or get creative and use words or phrases associated to the type of business that you do.
Next, do not get lazy, finish your profile! Fill out all details and be sure you give a clear description of your business. You need to show the Net folks that you are not a scam but you have a real and professional account. I know, it can get dragging and might feel a little cumbersome, but before you even start signing up, you need to be ready with the information you want to share to make sure that your Facebook page shows the right details and is seen as legitimate.
Finally, who wants to look at a boring account? Customize your Facebook page! They offer a lot of customization tools for business pages, so take advantage of that. Be sure you are ready with your design, too. The built-in apps at Facebook offer great customization options already, but for a better looking page, if you want your Facebook page to look as great as a customized webpage, you can look for third party tools that are simple and easy to use.
Guerilla marketing is not a new marketing strategy. In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs have already used it to promote their businesses. For the benefit of those who are not familiar with this type of marketing technique, Guerilla marketing mainly pertains to an advertising or promotional strategy that utilizes unconventional but low-cost means to convey an advertising message or promote a new product.
The idea was derived from the concept of ‘guerilla warfare’ wherein entrepreneurs use unique and atypical marketing tactics to thrive in a cutthroat and unforgiving business environment. This type of marketing technique relies heavily on imagination, energy and time. And unlike other advertising strategies, Guerilla marketing focuses more on coming up with thought-provoking and engaging concept to generate a big buzz in the consumers world. What’s great about guerilla marketing is the fact that you do not need to allot a big advertising budget to be able to successfully employ this type of marketing campaign.
With the emergence of guerilla marketing, business entrepreneurs would want to maximize their guerilla marketing ideas by combining them with effective social media marketing techniques. To help you boost your sales, improve your promotional campaigns, reach a wider audience, and make your brand known, here are some tips to help you maximize the combination of guerilla marketing and social media to your business advantage.
The main goal of guerilla marketing is to generate interest among your target audience like phlebotomist training recruits without relying on a big advertising budget. Guerilla marketing is all about creativity so it provides you with endless of marketing possibilities. Basically it is up to you how you would set up your guerilla marketing campaign, but to make it more effective you can use social media to spread the word about it.
Once you have conceptualized a good guerilla marketing tactic, it is important that you share the information. Create profiles in some of the top social media websites, such as Twitter and Facebook, and begin building your client base. Display the products you are offering on your site and allow people to comment on them. You can also allow your followers to rate your products so you would know what product they like the best.
Be sure to spread the word about your business. The core concept of Guerilla marketing is for people to get notice of your product. And there is no better way to reach a wide audience than through the help of social media sites. Viral marketing is the trend these days and you can combine this with your guerilla marketing campaign to get more desirable marketing results. Let people know about your products and how they can benefit from using them. Doing so will help you make your business known to your target consumers.
Amplify your price discount campaign. Social media sites can amplify your price discount campaign by allowing your followers to know that you are selling your products at a discounted price. Remember that information travel fast in the internet so use this to your advantage. You can tweet about it or post it on your Facebook account.
Use videos and pictures when advertising your product or service to easily engage the interest of potential customers. Rather than just using plain text, your guerilla social media marketing campaign will be more effective if catchy videos and photos are included.
Twitter has become one of the most widely used social media today. It has also become an important tool when it comes to online marketing. Some experts predict that Twitter might takeover e-mail marketing in the near future.
Anybody who has access to the Internet can sign-up on Twitter for free. Also, they can use it with ease since the social site is made to be user friendly. It also reaches different parts of the world, allowing even ordinary people to subscribe to the latest updates about their favorite actors, singers, products and companies. In fact, millions have created their accounts on Twitter because they can get instant updates from the people or companies they are following.
Since Twitter is a microblogging site that only allows you to tweet up to 140 characters, you can maximize it for the benefit of your business. Here are some ways to use the social media as a very effective marketing tool.
You can use Twitter as a tool for market research. Analyze customer’s ideas and gather important pieces of information from your target market in real-time.
Twitter also lets you follow and un-follow people with just a click of a button. People who follow you can be considered as the ones most loyal to your brand.
This social networking site allows you to communicate with your consumers in a timely manner. For example, when a customer complains on Twitter, you can provide viable solutions to his or her problems right away.
Creation of marketing buzz is also possible with Twitter. Many marketers are working to make a viral form of marketing via Twitter.
You can announce special offers to many potential customers by simply tweeting. Since Twitter is a real-time instrument, your followers can avail of the information almost instantly.
You may also feature some news items about your business among your followers through this incredible social media site.
Before customers can follow you, they need to become a member of the Twitter world and have their accounts verified. Then, they can search for your business page and click the “follow” button to know about the most recent offerings from your online business. Of course, you still need to promote your Twitter account to attract more people to become your followers. It is therefore important to combine offline and online tools to effectively launch your ad campaigns and increase the sales rates of your products or services. Bottom line, Twitter can help you achieve your business goals.
For people who have just recently launched their businesses online, diving into the realm of social media marketing could be a daunting task. Since millions of people are using social media for a gamut of purposes, expect that thousands of competitors are also using the medium to promote their businesses. There are some important things that you need to know when it comes to social media marketing.
Great things start from small beginnings. If you are a newbie, try to start small and avail of just two to three services at a time. When you have found the right services, narrow down your focus and you can grow based on the business’ growth.
Test those widgets and buttons often. Make sure that the things you place on your site work, otherwise, people will never waste their precious time visiting it.
Refrain from annoying your subscribers. This is the rule of thumb—if you do not want to receive something like it, do not place it in your site.
Do not worry about the follower counts. Followers will flock to your website when they find it interesting, informative and educational. It takes some time to organically build a good social profile so have patience and determination.
Check out what the pros are doing. When it comes to social media, everyone has their own strategies. There is nothing wrong in observing other people and checking out their activities because you can pick some good ideas from them.
Learn about the other social media sites. Social media is not all about Twitter and Facebook. In fact, there are hundreds of other sites that you can use to market and promote your business.
Keep your feet on the ground. Beginners should remain humble because nobody likes a know-it-all.
Create your online identity and register the brand names. This is important to establish your niche in the field and prevent cyber squatters from meddling with your business.
You must learn the basics of webmasters. Educate yourself with the concepts such as domain names, FTP web hosting, DNS and the basic control panel. These would help you in promoting your enterprise better.
Value the communities where you participate. Answer questions, share relevant and quality content or help people to establish trust.
Make sure that your site has good content. As they say, content is king, therefore, ensure that your posts or articles are well-written and informative so people will continue visiting your webpage
