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e-Marketing 2

Be networking savvy with social media as well as business media. It’s no good using LinkedIn to ask frivolous questions such as ‘Hey, dudes, how’s the surf looking over at Porthtowan?’ You’ll be ticked off, ‘go to facebook’ and quite right. facebook is a place for friends, acquaintances, people you once met on holiday, or spent time with at college – fine for catching up with any news but less about making good business contacts.

Linkedin is for AB users, 35-50 years old and wanting to use the site to make those good business connections and promote their own business, and you can manage your company’s reputation by monitoring www.twitter.com – the microblog site for brief updates (facebook also show status updates). Select all comments about your subject, sign up for google.com/alerts and twitter alerts. This way, you can begin new relationships with people who twitter, increase sales, and act fast to respond to postings, engage with complaints, and create opportunities to enhance your reputation.

facebook is useful for the lighter hearted stuff so no harm in posting that you’re on holiday, spending some time on a course, or maybe researching something interesting to your own business or that of others. That kind of information could prove useful. Loading up your business logo instead of a picture of grinning students will help with credibility.

Use http://delicious.com/ as a fantastic resource research. Here you can look to see what people have shared and save hours in your own search of the internet for the best whatever-it-is-you’re-looking-for. Technorati is a useful blog search engine so search this to find postings that relate to your work or interests.

Using social media will help your business to identify your audience and aim messages at them, so select the correct types of media for your service or product. Find out exactly where your future customers hang out in cyberspace depending on their interests, ie travel, dance, sci-fi, food, or various sports. If your business is surf wear or surf boards, try checking ‘best break’ sites, ‘best beach’ sites etc. Catch the hobbyists and make them your target market.

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