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Social Media

In 2009 one of the new buzz words was Social Media. As we move into 2010, it doesn’t appear as if Social Media is going away. At the same time many people and businesses are trying to not only understand Social Medial, but how it will help them.

Marketers are coming out of the woodwork telling you which Social Media platform SMB’s should use as well as how you should be using them.

We are in a quick changing world. Everyday there seems to be something new or a change in the old ways. Social Media is one of these quick changing items. Spending the time to understand, learn and use Social Media may just not be practical. Not worth the investment. And that’s alright.

With traditional media, whether it’s print, TV, Radio or others, most of the time is place up front. Putting together the advertising program and preparing the copy. Once it’s out there, it can run unchanged for as long as you want.

Social Media is mostly real time. It can not stay stagnant. One thing you can not do is open an account of one of the Social Media sites, put together a page and expect people to visit it. They probably won’t and if left alone, those who have visited will stop coming back.

Opening an account is just the first step in a long process. But just like any other trip once you open the door and take your first step, you must know where you are heading and how you plan on getting there.

Plan on spending some time on the site everyday, and during a time when those who are interested in your message are there to hear it. Remember Social Media is mostly real time. And give them information they want to hear. Slamming them constantly with a ‘buy this’ message will probably do one thing. Drive them away.

There are many Social Networking sites available. It will probably be a waste of time to try to work them all. So you need to be a little prep work to decide which one, if any, is the one for you.

Knowing your market and what they will tolerate will direct you in how to use Social Media. Each of the sites are different and have a different type of follower.

Gearing towards the teen market?
In general they don’t twitter, nor are they a big user of Facebook. Their social media seems to be more in the direction of one-to-one text messaging, YouTube and to a lesser degree MySpace.

Gearing towards the aging market?
Facebook is reported to have on average over 50 percent of their new members being over the age of 50. Many of these new members are women.

Looking for Business to Business contacts?
LinkedIn is used by business professionals from around the world.

A friend of mine, Michael Angelo Caruso a Personal Development speaker, has termed Facebook as the new White Pages and LinkedIn as the new Yellow Pages. I’m not sure I totally agree with him. Facebook may be turning into the new White Pages, but I see LinkedIn more as the new Business-to-Business Yellow Pages. Facebook Pages seem, to me, to be closer to the new Yellow Pages.

This is the first on a series of articles on Social Media.

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