Social Media is everywhere today. It has quickly become a household term, thanks to organizations such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. In fact, it has grown so much and so quickly that we still don’t exactly understand the power of Social Media. Are they communications tools? Communities? News sources? Or an advertising platform?
It’s our opinion at Canopy Media that Social Media is in fact all of these things and more. The way we use Social Media is determined by our expected outcome. For example, an individual who wants to connect with friends can easily search and add contacts to their social group. A business, on the other hand, wants to connect to an audience that may convert to sales or page views on their website.
Businesses can’t use all of these platforms as an advertising venue. It has been proven that direct advertising in some types of Social Media is not effective. An aggressive ad campaign conducted through Social Media can actually hurt your business in the long run if not done properly.
Today we’ll cover the first of the three major Social Media players and how their products work. Keep watching here for the follow up articles, part 2 on Linkedin and part 3 concerning Twitter.
Let’s begin with the the guys that started this whole mess.
Facebook is widely recognized as the major catalyst of the Social Media movement. It began in 2004 as a connection tool for students in universities and quickly expanded to allow access to anyone who wanted to join. Facebook allows users to gather and create social connections, sharing likes and dislikes, common interests with their ever expanding social networks.
What is Facebook?
The power or application of Facebook comes from it’s audience. With over 600 million members worldwide Facebook is drawing close to having the ear of ten percent of the planet. This network for electronic word-of-mouth is made even more powerful by it’s user driven interface. Users determine their own content, contacts and information.
Facebook’s Function
Facebook use is slightly different for businesses. Aggressive advertising or excessive news feed messages are viewed as negative by most users. The best route is to create public pages that users can ‘like’, merely making info available rather than forcing it on people. Better to have your audience come to you, than to perpetually pester them.
There is a much better venue for direct adverts; Linkedin.
Social media management has never been more important which is why we at Canopy Media have added Twitter and Facebook management to our list of Active Lead Generation (ALG) services.
Keep watching our blog feed for more info on social media. We touched on Facebook today and in the near future we’ll cover Twitter and Linkedin, showcasing how small businesses can and should use each social media suite for a specific purpose and to target specific audiences.
