Social media is a phenomenon that has a huge impact on businesses today.
The term social media encompasses a huge variety of websites such as blogs, forums, social networking sites and social bookmarking sites.
What do all of these things have in common? They are all highly interactive in nature and very up-to-the-minute in usage.
This is the power of word-of-mouth that has always been a fantastic source of new customers to every business but the internet has taken this power to a whole new level.
Any business who ignores this phenomenon is very likely leaving a lot of money on the table.
Social media management is the art of utilizing these various media in the way best suited to build the business brand, credibility and recognition in today's connected environment.
The business needs a comprehensive plan of social media management in order to have a cohesive image across all formats.
This usually means a dedicated employee, or even several, that can handle these activities.
This employee or group of employees needs to understand the psychology of today's internet user and be able to reach them in the language they are using.
The one aspect of social media management that can be difficult for most businesses is that it's a very time-consuming process when done correctly.
Each of the forums, social networking sites and social bookmarking sites will require a separate sign up process.
All of these type of sites offer a profile for the user so that is something that must be carefully developed on each and every site.
To make this part of the process even more difficult is the atmosphere of each site is often distinct from the others so you must get familiar with each site in order to know exactly what information will resonate with the group.
As you can imagine, just getting the accounts set up properly will take a large amount of time.
The time-consuming part of social media management doesn't stop there, either.
Each site is highly interactive with thousands, if not millions, of other people competing for the attention of the user base.
You must be active on a frequent basis in order to retain the attention once you do get it.
Not only should you be posting updates daily or at least several times weekly, you also must be sure to respond to the users who try to interact and comment to your posts.
You will fast lose the interest of your potential market if they don't hear from you on a regular basis.
Another aspect of social media management that most businesses fail to get right is that social media relies on buzz.
You need to be able to write something that gets people talking about you or buzzing to their friends.
This is a skill that not many possess, unfortunately, but without it, you might as well not bother.
If your company can't fulfill all of the aspects of social media management in-house, they would benefit from hiring an outside agency to take care of this for them.
The term social media encompasses a huge variety of websites such as blogs, forums, social networking sites and social bookmarking sites.
What do all of these things have in common? They are all highly interactive in nature and very up-to-the-minute in usage.
This is the power of word-of-mouth that has always been a fantastic source of new customers to every business but the internet has taken this power to a whole new level.
Any business who ignores this phenomenon is very likely leaving a lot of money on the table.
Social media management is the art of utilizing these various media in the way best suited to build the business brand, credibility and recognition in today's connected environment.
The business needs a comprehensive plan of social media management in order to have a cohesive image across all formats.
This usually means a dedicated employee, or even several, that can handle these activities.
This employee or group of employees needs to understand the psychology of today's internet user and be able to reach them in the language they are using.
The one aspect of social media management that can be difficult for most businesses is that it's a very time-consuming process when done correctly.
Each of the forums, social networking sites and social bookmarking sites will require a separate sign up process.
All of these type of sites offer a profile for the user so that is something that must be carefully developed on each and every site.
To make this part of the process even more difficult is the atmosphere of each site is often distinct from the others so you must get familiar with each site in order to know exactly what information will resonate with the group.
As you can imagine, just getting the accounts set up properly will take a large amount of time.
The time-consuming part of social media management doesn't stop there, either.
Each site is highly interactive with thousands, if not millions, of other people competing for the attention of the user base.
You must be active on a frequent basis in order to retain the attention once you do get it.
Not only should you be posting updates daily or at least several times weekly, you also must be sure to respond to the users who try to interact and comment to your posts.
You will fast lose the interest of your potential market if they don't hear from you on a regular basis.
Another aspect of social media management that most businesses fail to get right is that social media relies on buzz.
You need to be able to write something that gets people talking about you or buzzing to their friends.
This is a skill that not many possess, unfortunately, but without it, you might as well not bother.
If your company can't fulfill all of the aspects of social media management in-house, they would benefit from hiring an outside agency to take care of this for them.