If you are not sure which social networking sites you should target as a newbie, you can use Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to begin with, as all these sites are creating quite a buzz on the web.
To make the most of your advertising campaign on these sites, you should have a fair idea of what to do and how to do the things the right way. So, here are some tips that will help you get started.
* You can use some applications to increase the functionality of your fan page on Facebook, which will get more people interested in your offerings and bring them to your site. Though installing such applications may be somewhat tricky for unfamiliar users as compared to creating your personal profile page, it’s worth the effort.
* You can use Social RSS to import a maximum of five different RSS feeds from anywhere on the World Wide Web and share the same with your Facebook fans. You can import news relevant to your niche, your company blog, your tweets about special offers, discounts etc, or anything else that may be of interest to your fans. You may even check out RSS Graffiti that allows you to pull the RSS feed of your choice automatically, complete with links and images, which you can show on your wall.
* You can also build a trusting bond with your users by engaging them in polls from time to time, which consist of new questions, to check the response. The YouTube application is another great way of sharing your video content with your fans, and entice them to visit your site and make purchases.
* Another great way of bringing some fun element into your interaction with your users is to use Facebook Markup Language or FBML, which is the coding language of Facebook that can help you to create your own customized tabs, thereby helping your users. You can even customize your landing page to let new users stumble upon it, which in turn will increase your chances of converting these guests into your fans and potential customers.
MySpace
* An impressive profile page on MySpace can help you to build brand recognition and advertise your offerings effectively on the web. To begin with, you should set up a page, add features like videos etc, and start making friends. The more like-minded people you can connect with, the more chances your business has for succeeding.
* You can also use the MySpace blog, as well as bulletin and comment functions for promoting your business.
* Joining MySpace groups that are relevant to your industry can help you to promote your business. However, after joining your chosen groups, you should be an active participant in them and keep posting relevant content, thereby getting involved in the conversation. You may even create your own group and start a conversation on MySpace.
* Since you can’t advertise within Twitter unlike Facebook, you need to engage your audience to make your marketing efforts bear fruit. Twitter can help you to build your personal brand, as you can establish yourself as a sociable person on this platform who is connected and show how approachable you are.
* You can also invite people to share their feedback on your offerings. Such collective feedback can offer you fodder for your future projects or offer an insight into how to better or fine-tune your products and/or services.
* You can network with other like-minded people, especially those belonging to the same niche, on the socializing platform of Twitter. This way, you can create deeper and consistent relationships, which in turn may be used later for peer recommendations or testimonials, all of which will help you to increase your credentials and entice new customers.
Some Twitter applications worth a try are:
* TwitterFeed that you can use to feed your Twitter account directly with any RSS feed of your choice. This completely automated application supports several feeds and you can use the same to customize options like link tracking, custom text inserts (that you can use to add your company name or a hashtag to every tweet), refresh rate (that helps you to check new posts), etc.
* To enjoy tweeting on the go, you can use popular iPhone applications like TweetDeck and Tweetie, Twidroid (a popular Android app), Pocketwit or TinyTwitter (ideal for Windows Mobile users).
* If you want to let Twitter users know about your business offerings in quick time, TweetMeme can help as you can use it to add HTML embeddable buttons into your product pages, content, email newsletters etc.
Thus, by using these social networking sites and the aforesaid apps, you can network effectively and even enhance the appeal of your website by adding some social media spice to it. So, what are you waiting for? Go out and use these effective platforms to get the word out about your offerings.
By: Michelle Crossley
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