Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Features and Benefits of Social Networking Sites

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Today’s age is an age of advanced technology. With boon of Internet reaching almost every corner of the world, there has been an immense transformation in each and every field. Be it setting up a better platform of communication or connecting the globe under a common network, Internet has truly contributed in making world much a smaller place to live in. From video chats to Video conferencing, from online marketing to socializing via social media, Internet has truly and surely been a blessing for the global societies.

Last decades witnessed the evolvement of a brand new concept termed social networking. Now we ought o understand what is actually meant by social media marketing. Well, SMM is referred to define certain websites that facilitate inter-personal communication through certain websites wherein people can create their own profile page and communicate with friends and associates through online messages or scraps. A user can create a network of friends, create a group, initiate or take part in a group discussion. In a nutshell, these Social Media websites became a tool that paved the way for advanced mode of communication between all the networks and internet users. Gradually, the concept of web 2.0 managed to reach a new high. In fact, the social media sites not only remained a platform to initiate informal dialogues and a facilitator of live messages, but became an integral part of marketing strategies of many a business houses. The application of these sites has spread to business houses that started using the Social Networking sites as a platform to promote their services and create brand awareness.

Social Networking soon became a way for brand Marketing and promotion on social sphere, whereby, the enterprises started using these online communities or websites for developing contacts and driving traffic to their respective websites. Today, these social networking websites form the main tool of social media marketing. The most commonly used websites that have become drastically popular over last couple of years are Twitter and Facebook. Following these two are some other sites such as LinkedIn, My Space, Digg and StumbleUpon.

Facebook – Facebook is a Social Networking Site which helps friends and colleagues to share dialogues with each other through Wall Posts, Messages and Comments. Today, Facebook has more than 350 million members and still counting. This site experiences more than two million clicks per day. Statistics state that users spend an average of 20 minutes per day in Facebook. The advanced functionalities of Facebook allow the users a longer shelf life. An user can view your files which are more than five years old. With such wonderful features, Facebook soon became one of the lethal tools of SMM and SMO. Businesses, especially small scale business houses started using the medium of Facebook to promote their brands and services. Setting up a business page and initiating and regulating interactions with the visitors are some of the strategies that business houses adhere to, in Facebook.

Twitter – Twitter is a social media platform where the users ‘tweet’ to keep in touch with friends and his ‘followers’ within his/her circle. Twitter allows posting "tweets" to all the people in their online network. Each tweet is of 140 characters. Submission of links of favorite websites or ‘re-tweeting’ other people's stories is the way to communicate in Twitter. Twitter also became a tool for social media marketing, wherein a business posting a Tweet button on every post on its blog, makes it easy for anyone who reads the post to Tweet it to their followers. This helps channelize the informations to spread from one end to another, creating proper brand awareness. Tweeting the up to date information of the business can be a great source of reaching a mass of audience. Another feature of Twitter is that it allows you to feed your messages to other websites. You can lead people to your Twitter page from your homepage. Updating the Twitter with regular tweets about the latest happenings of the company may also become a reliable avenue to market your brand.

Social media and networking Sites have not only contributed to take inter-personal communication to a different level, but also have been a great marketing tool for the small businesses. Well planned approach to social media marketing via social networking sites can be of great help in promoting the business, create proper brand awareness and in the end, meet the ultimate business ends. A business house must have proper expertise and planning to approach in the network so as to reap the fruits of benefits to the very best.


More: http://www.hsengine.com/s_Digg+2.0.html

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