Social Media for Beginners

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Social Media for Beginners – Step 1-2-3

Social media is today’s fastest and best way to share content and information, nudging out more mainstream means such as the radio and newspapers off center, in bringing the latest news. It’s relatively cheaper, publishing is easier, and the reach is all but infinite.

Facebook may just be the biggest social networking service where people can get in touch even with their kindergarten crush. Twitter has become today’s telegram service. Blogs such as WordPress and TypePad has become both personal and business sites. Email has all but edged out snail mail, and Internet forums can spread news faster than you can say “speedy Gonzales”. Everyone, as in everyone, in the world today has at least one social media account, at least one. The rest have two or more. The smart businessperson can see (and use) the limitless potential online to expand his business.

For the social media newbie, there are several steps of making a name for yourself in the World Wide Web. The use of technology is not just for personal publication, but for business as well.

Let’s start our Internet campaign by following the next few steps:

1. Know Your Audience

Who are they? What do they like? What do they like to know? The trick to providing quality content is knowing how to interact with your audience. A business blog will not likely hold the interest of a teenaged girl fantasizing about the Jonas Brothers, and a football coach would most probably steer clear of a handbag blog.

If you’re selling hand-crafted jewelry, your most likely target audience would be women, about twelve years old and above. At this point, your business blog will best touch on topics that these women would be interested in. Talking about football probably wouldn’t help. On the other hand, if your business is selling sports gear, football may just be the right topic to write about.

Knowing what your audience likes is a guarantee that you’d be able to give it to them, and have them come back to you every time.

2. Identify Where They Are

Where would your audience be? If we’re going back to the hand-crafted jewelry, your target audience would probably be converging in sites where women are mostly interested in. What are women’s interests? You can look for similar sites. Google is a pretty clever site to look for them. Use keywords such as jewelry, gem stones, and something similar.

Women’s forums are also teeming with potential audience and possible future customers. There are threads devoted to jewelry, and finding the online presence of the women who could be your audience are quite easy.

For the sports store, sports forums will be the best place to spot men who need sports equipment. You can also haunt sports sites, and find the people who visit them and are interested in them.

3. Establish Your Presence

When you’ve found the sites and forums where your target audience meets, don’t just stand there and look around like a wall flower, establish your presence. Leave a comment on their blog with a link to yours. Leave relevant comments. Comments that express your thoughts on the topic rather than a generic comment that would mark you as a spammer and annoy the readers.

In forums, speak out. Introduce yourself and your business. Don’t be annoying. You want to establish your presence not a bad reputation. Most importantly, lead your audience to your site.

Do these first three steps, and people will be glad to visit your site and check your business. The next time, we’ll talk about what else we need to do to keep them coming back.