Are you overwhelmed by the internet?

Feb. 3, 2012 - PRLog -- Since the internet as we know it gained popularity in the mid 1990’s, it has always had its nay-sayers. It was just a fad and it would never last – it was an obscure tool for only the most techno minded. Oh how wrong they were. The internet has become not only mainstream, but essential to our personal and professional lives. A business that doesn’t have an online presence just doesn’t count for much anymore. Your webpage is your storefront and ad campaign all rolled into one, and social media is how you communicate with your consumer base.

All things considered, a website is easy. Most of it is static content – like an online billboard or pamphlet – with maybe one or two pages that are updated regularly with new content, and is entirely in your control. Social media, however, is a different beast altogether. Social media stretches over multiple sites and allows contact and feedback with a very broad audience through hundreds of sources, and it’s driven by the public so it represents an ever changing landscape.

There are two main prongs to social media: social networking site and social news sites.

Social networking involves sites like Google +, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, all of which allow you or your company to connect with and have a dialogue with your customer base and business partners. While PR and self-promotion are an obvious goal, it’s important to post updates and stories of interest that are related to you/or your industry in some way but are also interesting or enlightening for your followers. In social networking people choose to be associated with you and follow your updates, so you need to give them something that they want to read. This can include self-promotion, but post can include promoting success of others, tips, interesting news stories and anything else relevant to your industry. Also make sure to respond to queries and comments (whether positive or negative) –  conversation gives your company a human connection, which really does mean a lot to people.

This connects to social news sites which are 100% member driven. Content on pages like Reddit, Stumbleupon, and Digg are rated by users, pushing highly rated sites up and low rated sites down. This means whatever is popular with users will gain online momentum, and might even strike gold and ‘go viral’. If you are popping up on these homepages, or even trending on Twitter, this means people are talking about you. It doesn’t mean they’re saying good things (that’s up to you and what you post) but it does mean your name is out there and your site is getting hits.

And how do we keep people interested in you and what you’re doing online? Content. Lots and lots of varied content. The attention span of an internet user is very short and they are fickle – think of someone flicking channels on satellite TV. There is a lot to choose from so you really need to catch people’s attention. You need a variety of content and you need to update it often. Maybe the content you have is really good, but it only updates once a month – you’re going to be forgotten. However, careful not to go too far the other way – post a ton of junk, and you’ll be ignored.

Try and keep up a variety of content including blogs (yours and others), news stories, tips, achievements, current projects, videos, pictures and anything else you can think of that’s appropriate for your public image and related in some way to your business. Also have more than one person in charge of your social media. It will add variety and fresh perspective and prevent your content (and your employee) from getting tired and stale.

Still not sure where to start? Make sure your website is a place that you’re 100% happy with, then pick one media site like Facebook or Twitter and learn how to use it really well before expanding yourself to include other sites. Quality is just as important as quantity, and once things on the internet start to really move they’re hard to stop, so make sure everything that’s going up is worth having out there. Then just make sure to keep things relevant, appropriate, and varied – think ‘what would keep me interested online?’

The internet is an amazing took for promoting  your business and staying in touch with what your customer base is thinking, what the like, and what they’d like to see change. While it can be daunting at first, once you get started things aren’t as scary as they seem.

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MkM Direct Ltd. is a leading outsourced direct sales and marketing company
with operations in Ireland. Key business areas are face to face sales and marketing through business to business, business to consumer and event campaigns.