Many businesses hear about the advantages of social media in terms of marketing their products or services, but some forget to look at other major benefits of social media beyond finding leads or making a sale. Here are eight ways that businesses can use social media to learn more about themselves and their industry as well as get more involved with their clients and communities interested in what they have to offer.
1. Monitor Conversation About Themselves
There are many free ways to monitor what people are saying about your company through social media, including the following:
Google Alerts
Google Alerts will send you a daily digest email anytime your search terms come up in blogs, news, or other websites.
Social Mention
Social Mention monitors 100+ social media properties directly including: Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg, Google etc. You can have your mentions emailed to you daily.
Twitter Search
If you want to know real time what people are saying, you can setup a Twitter search in HootSuite, Tweetdeck, or just keep a RSS feed in your feed reader using Twitter search results. Include searches for your company, business owner, or unique product name.
After each Google PageRank update, bloggers find themselves pondering the value of PageRank in relationship to their blog, and what really made the difference between whether their site got its first PageRank, a huge jump, a deserved increase, an undeserved decrease, or the infamous no information available rank.
While most are concerned about their main site in comparison to others, I found myself curious about the internal PageRank of posts on my site, since my root domain PageRank has remained steady for the last several updates. So I decided to do a little analysis of top content using pageviews, comments, tweets, and other factors in comparison to the PageRank of those posts. Here is a sampling of that analysis, including my own posts from this site, guest author posts on Kikolani, and a post I did for my company website (since I have access to their analytics).
No matter your choice of profession, it’s much easier to find a job today than it was before the advent of the Internet. What used to be accomplished through phone calls, letters and word of mouth is now just a click away – you’re connected to all possible sources of jobs, not just through online job sites and forums but also through social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. It’s a time when technology rules, and if you’re not connected, you end up being the loser.
While blogging may not be a full time job for most people, it does pay to be on LinkedIn if you’re a serious blogger. The following are three benefits that this network could bring you.
Everyone uses social media in their own way. While some people want to be connected with everyone, everywhere, others would rather keep certain profiles private for friends and family only. The following is for those who want to be found on social networks, or for the networks on which they want to be found.
Why You Want to Be Found on Social Networks
Think of your profile and activity on social networks as creating brand recognition. At the recent Social Media AZ event, the keynote speaker talked about how having a catalog on your coffee table increased brand awareness. Sure, that catalog may sit there for months and months, but one day when you are ready to purchase something that the company sells, that catalog will probably be in the front of your mind and lead you to hopping on the company’s website or going into their stores to do your shopping.
The same thing can be said of social media. One day, you may realize you need to brush up on your SEO, and the first resource that comes to mind is the SEO expert whose tips have been coming through your Twitter timeline. Alternatively, someone could be reminded to visit your site after seeing your name pop up in their Facebook news feed, simply thanks to your recent activity. Any reminder of your presence online could translate to a hit to your website, comment, promotion, or even a new client.
Thursday things – the I Love Your Blog Award, my first guest post, useful Web 2.0 Resources, and YouTube favorites.
