Social Media: Time to Get Creative?

Most of us are using Social Media, but the real question is... are you using it to its fullest potential?

The benefits of social media are unprecedented. The biggest benefactor is that it doesn't cost you anything - at least nothing but your time. It's easy to keep your brand in front of hundreds or thousands of people - every day.

There are hidden benefactors as well. Search engine rankings can be improved when your friends and fans link to your website. But keep in mind that nobody will link to your website without reason.

To run an effective social media advertising campaign, a business needs fresh, informative content supplied from a business blog. This will attract and engage users and enable the business to participate in the social community.

The biggest mistake in using social media for business is to become a one-sided citizen. You know the kind. They are the people that only post about their business - nothing else. The key to social media is to be social. You need to gain the trust of the community. You need to engage in conversation - lend a helping hand. Use your expertise to guide others. The payoff is when they need your services, they will view you as the expert and come to you.

Giveaways are also a great way to advertise your business and get your name out there. They are many ways to conduct your contest.

Here's how the contest works. The public comes to our website and enters their email address. We then ask for them to like our Facebook fan page. They now have an entry in the giveaway. But here's the kicker, they now can earn more entries by referring people to the contest. They get a unique code to send to their friends, and when their friends sign up, they get another entry. This creates a viral type of marketing. Now our friend's friends (and their friends) are marketing our company without even realizing that they are.

Now I should remind you that the goal of this contest is not to collect emails. We won't be using them to spam their email boxes. The value is in brand recognition and search engine optimization with the number of backlinks they are creating.

Social Media is effective, but you may have to be creative with how you use it for it to be effective.

Chad VanCalster is president of Sonix Studio. A Computer Science graduate of Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Chad started his career consulting for large corporations in the region, including Wisconsin Tissue, Georgia Pacific and Schneider National, among others.

In 2001 Chad launched Sonix Studio which specializes in serving the internet marketing needs of small and medium sized businesses. By designing interactive websites for their clients, Sonix Studio helps companies take the next step to business success by creating profitable websites that bring in leads through several marketing channels.

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