How Social Networking Can Benefit Your Business

By Melissa Mashtonio

These days social networking sites have expanded to reach beyond the teen crowd and out to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. These sites now have an incredibly large number and range of people using them daily for hundreds of reasons. One of the newest, and most profitable, reasons to use such sites is marketing. Social network sites may be one the easiest ways to market business names to thousands, and it all starts with the click of a mouse.

To start your adventure into the world of social networking, start by figuring out the type of people you want to target and start contributing to a social network community where you can find that target group. When youve found your community, begin posting in forums and on blogs to begin to build trust and recognition within the community. This will take some time, but it is worth it to establish trust with the users.

Once youve gotten the handle of the community (or communities) youve chosen, start a blog or page of your own and keep it updated and interesting. This will increase your recognition and legitimacy in the community. Try adding videos or podcast to your page to make it more interesting for your viewers. However, stay away from anything that seems like a commercial for your product as this will turn off community members and remove some of your legitimacy.

At first it may seem you are just playing around when using social networking sites, but be assured you are helping your business by being online. These sites create a more personal connection between your company and potential customers, making them trust your name. This trust leads to more referrals both through other social networking sites and among family and friends. Putting your name out on social networking sites will create Word of Mouth marketing, which is one of the most beneficial types of marketing you can get.

Social networking sites also, as mentioned earlier, reach a number of people it would be impossible to reach otherwise. The days of social networking sites being teen only are now gone and thousands of people are using these sites for professional gain as well. Adding your business name to multiple sites will also help your organic search placement in Google and Yahoo, giving you more business.

Finally, social networking sites give you the ability to get immediate feedback about products and services your business offers. After a blog or forum post you can look back at comments and see what users think. This immediate feedback can be priceless as it will give your business less lag time between the creation of new products. The feedback gained on these sites can also lead to new ideas from users. Forums and blogs are a great place to bounce ideas off one another and come up with new ones.

When posting on social networking sites, trust and legitimacy are most important. Stay away from using a fake name or having an impersonal script to use when posting comments in forums or blogs. If creating a blog, use original content or at least add commentary to articles or other posts you found. This will show your blog is not computer generated or simply a tool for gaining brand recognition.

Finally, dont get carried away with adding yourself to sites. Try and limit yourself to two or three sites so you can make sure you put in the effort needed. Also, dont try to connect with every users on every site. Doing so will be exhausting and impersonal. Look for the most influential users and try to create a connection there. This will give you more legitimacy within the community.

Although using social networking sites can seem time consuming, it is well worth the effort. This will get your business name out to a wide market and will help you build connections for the future when you promote new products or add special services. But the best part of social networking may be it is virtually free, granting only gain to your business. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and start networking!

About the Author: Melissa Mashtonio writes for Manta.com, the go-to site for

business research

. The site (http://www.manta.com) offers free research on more than 57 million companies worldwide.

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