Networking: Are Social Media Sites Worth My Time?

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Online Social Marketing could help a business grow and in the next five to ten years all battles will be fought and won there. However, choosing the right site in order to attract additional visitors for your site is a double edge sword.
As a business owner you cannot ignore social media sites, whether you like them or not. Only those who constantly network on those sites could use them to their advantage.

There are many ways of interacting on these sites. For example, you can create a blog on Facebook and target an audience that will be interested in your products or services. Do not alienate your readers by constantly talking about your products/services and how good they are. It is very annoying to read a blog where more than 20 articles talk about the same product or service again and again. Instead, help users find solutions to their own problems. By helping them, you are helping yourself in return. Provide free contents for your readers and ask nothing in return. If they like your articles, they will come back and refer other readers. Give and you will receive, is that simple!

Use forums to interact with other users by providing practical advices. Again avoid spamming these sites; otherwise you will get banned before you even get started.

It could be very tempting to build a profile on more than 50 Online Social networking sites
in order to attract the maximum of users for your business. Don’t even try. This strategy could backfire and it is impracticable. Use a selective approach and see what works best. Test-drive for example 20 sites for 3-6 months and watch the results. Which sites are driving more traffic to your site and which ones are not worth your time. You will then be able to reduce the number to around five sites maximum, where you could invest your time networking with people. Remember that it takes time to build an image on those sites. We think six months the waiting time to get some results. This means that it is not a quick fix. You need patience and consistency.

Again, once you there, avoid selling your products or service directly to your network. Instead interact with them, ask questions and respond. Your profile will do the rest.

Some piece of advice:

(1) Do not join too many sites at the same time. Instead focus on the five most effective Social Networking sites and build a presence there
(2) Do not try to sell aggressively your products/services to everyone. People will get bored. You are trying to create a brand awareness and that could take more than a year before people start recognising you.
(3) Be active and update your profile.

If you like this article, you will be interested in this one: ‘Network: Your Business Depends On It‘