The internet is ever evolving and as a web designer an important part of my job is to stay current with the tools and applications.  One of the hottest trends over the last few years has been  social media. It is a trend that is here to stay.

What can I do with social media

Sharing: From a video on YouTube, a simple 140 character tweet or a submission to a news sharing site like  Digg. Social media sites offer the ultimate platforms for freely sharing ideas, knowledge.

Opportunity: Your clients and customers are using social media. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to converse with them on these platforms.

Conversation: If I had to chose just one word to encapsulate social media it would be conversation. Those conversations can build trust, give higher visibility and ultimately generate sales.

Interaction: Collaborate, combine and connect. Ask questions, offer solutions to  questions posed by others. Join in discussions.

Awareness: Use social media to build, maintain and create awareness of your brand.

Listen: The art of a great conversation is to be able to listen.

Marketing: Build a focused fan base through networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. You have a ready made target audience for your marketing campaigns.

Engage: Generate responses from your followers by including open ended questions, polls and offering information that will be truly useful to them.

Dialogue: Social media is not a single voice. If you tweet join in conversations.  If someone comments on a blog post post a comment back and generate a dialogue.

Involve: Ask for feedback on products/ideas/services.

Appropriate: Is Facebooking what you ate for lunch appropriate material for you social media profile. Do not dissolve your brand image with inappropriate information!

©: 2011 Chicago web designer