The advantages of creating intuitive international Facebook pages

It is important to note that the demographics of this social network indicate that over seventy percent of the clients are residents of countries other than the United States of America. Consequentially, creating a strong Facebook presence individually tailored for the common languages in the world would be a boon for any global corporation. After all, although English is a widely spoken language, brands should account for the fact that not all users are fluent at this universal language.

In addition to that, fairly few global corporations took the time to adapt the design of Facebook presence to the specifications of different countries or languages. Given that potential clients are generally put off when they realize that they cannot find the product that has been advertised or the one they are looking for, intuitive pages are essential.

Exploiting the geo-social market via the mobile Facebook

This step is generally important for storefront companies, because the geo-location capabilities of the modern day smartphones in addition to the mobile versions of Facebook can be an important ally to any marketer. In essence, the local advertisement can boost the profits of any brick and mortar retailer or service provider and Facebook is practically handing you the tools to do it.

Combining e-commerce with the Facebook platform

The ads placed by different companies on the Facebook social network are generally redirecting the interested customers towards the website on which they can conduct the transaction. However, the untapped potential of making the sales directly through Facebook can bring immense benefits, even though the trend has yet to take off. It is fair to say that at the moment this social network is not as adept at facilitating transactions as specialized online stores, but it is very likely that the first companies that will launch the fad of shopping on Facebook are very likely to be remembered.

Interacting with clients and potential clients directly via Facebook

Basically, the focus of many corporations in promoting their products on Facebook is to stick to a preset schedule of posting different articles, content, messages, so on and so forth on their wall. However effective this may be, the benefits of creating an open communication line with customers, answering their questions, actively listening to their requests cannot be denied. Not only will the customers feel as if their opinions are taken into account and that they are communicating with an actual person rather than a faceless corporation, but the suggestions they provide could be invaluable.

Brand advertisement through ads

The common misconception is that the paid ads located on the side of the Facebook window should only be employed for redirecting customers towards the buy-websites. Well, given the fact that purchasing ad space is quite affordable, even for smaller or medium corporations, the ads can successfully be used to promote the company, the sponsored campaigns it is involved in, general politics and so on. In essence, the idea is that enlarging the base clientele can be done by educating the general public regarding the brand and what it stands for.

So there you have it, the link between Facebook and brand advertisement demystified; but do you know how to capitalize on it?

1. it allows you to speak to a wide range of people for free,
2. it allows you to place a link in the text,
3. it allows you to cut your marketing expenditure.

In the following series of articles we try to understand a little bit more this amazing tool and find out some of its benefits.

• Rules to Succeed with Twitter
• How to Build Your Twitter Profile
• How to Benefit from Twitter
• Earning From Twitter
• Tips on Building an Effective Twitter Network

• What Is Facebook?
• Some Historical Facts
• Facebook Presence
• Find out who are your customers
• Customer Needs to Effective Tactics
• Successful Social Media Campaign
• Quick-Start Guide for Social Media
• Conclusions

Since we understand that both the professional world and the business world have similar goals, we know that both must evolve at the same pace and in the same direction. A simple solution has proven to be Social Media Marketing. Popular websites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and activities such as blogging are being embraced as a powerful way to expose business and build relationships. This is important as the truth is that your customers do not care how much you know, they are more concerned with how much you care.

The biggest goal with social media marketing is to provide you with an avenue that will help close the gap between you and your customers. Social media provides access that was not always available in the past. It provides you with the ability to have contacts on an individual basis while still being able to reach hundreds or thousands of people for free. The essence of social media is really about meeting new people and building trust for your business.

Although social media is technically free, it isn’t totally free. With all social media sites, you have to put forth both time and efforts to achieve your desired results. It would be a mistake to pretend social media is totally free. There is no charge to join Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, but your profiles will still need to be very well maintained.

Even though the social media sites require time spent, it’s is a far cry from the money spent from traditional advertising and marketing. Magazine ads, Yellow Pages advertising and direct mail can be effective but generally a small amount of people are actually reached. Thus, the concept of social media and its benefits causes traditional marketing methods to fall short.

No matter what type of business you run, you can expect social media to bring in new clients if used effectively. You’ll begin to notice differences between online and off-line marketing methods. With practice you will begin to find strategies that are easy to implement. Social media marketing requires a great deal of time and effort, the benefit of these strategies is what makes social media the wave of the future.

There are plenty of social media sites to choose from. Your best bet is to find out where your target audience is already gathering. You can do this by searching through the most popular social media sites for conversations that might pertain to you.

Before you launch a campaign listen to your community. You must first begin to effectively participate in the conversation, and that means that you have to first listen. Why is it that your community is discussing? Once you begin to understand the conversation and realize that you have something meaningful to say, dive in. Users would rather engage with someone who is interested in the conversation and not someone who has something to sell. Just imagine yourself hanging out with a group of like-minded people. You would not appreciate a salesman interrupting your conversation. Therefore, you have to be willing to provide the same courtesy.

Make sure your campaign is designed for your community. Once you feel you have completely immersed yourself into relevant conversations, generating leads will become easier. If you take the time to listen and participate you will begin to have a clear idea of which communities are open to your products or services. The only way that you can create an effective social media marketing campaign is to understand your community.

Before beginning any sort of lead generation campaign, you must also understand the rules and policies of social media sites. If you wish to engage in long-term marketing strategies, you will have to understand the policies and commercial opportunities on that particular site. If you are interested in testing the waters before you begin a large campaign, consider advertising on that site before you begin. Most social media websites have some form of advertising that will allow you to target certain demographics. Furthermore, this type advertising is very affordable. You can begin testing the waters in this way before implementing your marketing strategy.

Although twitter has a lot of similarities with the other popular websites, its functionality is quite different. Not only is twitter a social networking site, but is best described as a micro-blogging platform. Twitter is also one of the most secure social media sites on the Internet. There are many celebrities who use twitter as a way to network with their fans. There are times when twitter is used to create illegal or unauthorized profiles. But the more you become comfortable with twitter, the more you will realize that when one of these fake accounts is created they are also deleted. Furthermore, the account will be suspended permanently and the authorities will sometimes be alerted.

It didn’t matter if you are someone who is unfamiliar with the Internet or a seasoned pro. Most of us are familiar with twitter in one form or another. Twitter gained a large amount of popularity in a short amount of time. The popularity that this social media website has gained is one of the things that makes it most attractive to people doing business online. Thus, twitter will continue to grow in popularity. Online business owners are beginning to realize how important a twitter profile can be for reaching prospective clients. The fact that twitter is so easy to use is also one of the reasons why it continues to grow popularity.

At the bottom of twitter there are very obvious advertising links that are visible on everyone’s twitter profile. These advertising links provide targeted links to products from other websites. However, advertising is by far the only way to make money from twitter. Many people from many parts of the world with lots of different businesses are learning how they can make money with twitter.

As we have already mentioned, twitter is not just a social networking site. It is a micro-blogging platform that gives you numerous opportunities to tweet links to your website or products and create little marketing messages to generate interest. This opportunity also works well with marketing your articles and your affiliate programs. It won’t take long before you become comfortable with the twitter platform. Once you master twitter you will find it easier to think of new ways to use tweeting to your benefit.

One of the things you should do when developing your social media marketing strategy is to learn to participate in your community. In a social media situation you will discover that there are a lot of different conversations going on. There isn’t any need to try to dominate every conversation that you come across. But if you participate in these conversations and offer helpful advice that is honest and answer questions wherever possible you will begin to see the networking possibilities. The main reason why people participate in these social sites is because they wish to meet new people and have conversations without being bombarded by advertisements. If you are going to create credibility for yourself, you will need to engage in a way that will allow your network to feel comfortable in expressing their opinions. It is appropriate for you to provide a negative response provided that your response helps the other person learn something new. Only when the situation is appropriate should you lead them to your products. If you do this appropriately your network will feel as if you are providing information and not trying to make a sale.

Facebook and Twitter are excellent starting places for a good social media strategy. Creating accounts on these two social sites is very simple. Both sites will allow you the opportunity to use your company name and gain instant access to millions of people. Aside from that, you’ll also be able to monitor your competitors and market your own products to your desired audience. Creative content that is informative and entertaining will help you build a loyal group of followers. This will allow you to work towards gaining recommendations and referrals from your network. Social media is especially beneficial for business-to-business companies.

Once you have an effective social media marketing strategy in place you can begin to expand your marketing reach. Social media is an important way to create a strong presence for your business on the web. It will allow you to not only grow your loyal customer base but also gain trust and continue to grow your business.

1. www.youtube.com Everybody loves video. Oddly, there are a lot of business owners that choose not to use video in their marketing efforts. That might not sound smart, but that just means that there are more opportunities for you.
2. www.blogger.com Blogger.com is a very popular free blogging platform that is Google owned. One of the things that make it so popular is that since it is completely free you can sign-up and start creating content right away. Your content is indexed on the Web very quickly.
3. www.twitter.com Most of us have heard of twitter. Almost everyone including celebrities and politicians, use twitter. Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that can be used to point to more substantial content.
4. www.wordpress.com WordPress is another free blogging platform that is also very popular. It is an open source platform that is very user-friendly and has lots of functionality that includes being part of a network of blogs that are picked up both Google and Facebook.
5. www.digg.com Digg is a popular social media and bookmarking site. Digg allows its users to share content from anywhere on the web. This is a very popular site in Google’s eyes.
6. www.hubpages.com Hubpages is a publishing platform that has an active amount of users. It is an easy to use website for content creation. It is very important for your overall social media strategy as your hub pages are indexed very quickly.
7. www.squidoo.com Squidoo is very similar to the pages. Squidoo allows you to create what they call lenses. A lens is simply a landing page for you to publish your content for the world to see. It is an extremely easy-to-use site that will allow you to add many types of content such as video, images, and articles.
8. www.zimbio.com Zimbio is a growing online magazine and social media site. This sites centers around pop culture including entertainments and current events. The content you submit is not limited to these areas. You are allowed to include any content.
9. www.wetpaint.com Wetpaint is a website that allows each of its members to build a community site around their company. It is a very popular website.
10. www.propeller.com Propeller is AOL’s social media site. It is also very easy to use. You can submit your site or article. Submissions from Propeller always do very well in Google. Right now it is very important but their traffic seems to be declining.

The best way to make use of these sites is to post content consistently. You can use these sites in combination with each other to create interconnected content that is all pointing back to your site. Over time you will begin to see your traffic grow.

1. Learn the rules first. Take a look around the site before you begin. Learn what other users are sharing. If you find that the popular discussions interest you then you have found a bookmarking site that suits you.
2. Be respectful of others. Be respectful of the knowledge and content that the other users share and never talk down to them. Being disrespectful can lead to you not being accepted yourself. What you should do is take the time to recognize users that you can relate to. Recognition will always win loyalty.
3. Provide information that is helpful. It is most effective to offer pieces of information about new innovations and developments that the community will find interesting. Humor and good resources well provides you with credibility. Credibility builds trust among your community.
4. Never spam. This is one of the most important rules. If you share resources that are irrelevant or share the same resource too often, it will be considered spam. If you outsource your social bookmarking strategies to another company that uses any spamming techniques, ask them to stop.
5. Be an individual. Communicate your ideas and your resources in your own words. Original ideas and thoughts always receive positive feedback and promote discussion.
6. Participate actively. If you wish to use social bookmarking as a way to create a networking resource, it’s important that you also read what others share and comment on. Provide updates on a daily basis so that you will remain in view of your followers.
7. Most importantly, stick with it. It’s common for users of social media sites to quit very early. But the longer you remain active on sites, the greater your chances will be to turn your followers into clients. If you continue to be active among your community, you will begin to build trust.

These rules are just the beginning. But if you follow these rules, it will not take long before you master the art of social bookmarking.

One thing that makes social media optimization so popular among online business owners is that it creates a strong avenue to market to prospective customers. It can be difficult depending entirely upon search engines for traffic. This is where social media comes in. Here are some social media tips that any savvy marketer should follow:

Most Internet users are starved for informative and entertaining information. Videos, blogging and news feeds that can feed this hunger are guaranteed to get attention. If you can provide such content, you will find that large amounts of Internet users will flock to it and spread the word about it. When that happens, your site’s exposure and back links grow rapidly. Thus, offering needed content is one of the most important foundations for building a social media optimization campaign. As your content grows in popularity so will your traffic.

Always use your tags and bookmarks. When sharing your content with your site visitors, you’ll find that your visitors will always make the simplest choice possible. Where social media is concerned, it’s important to take advantage of your tagging and bookmarking opportunities. There are a variety of scripts or plug-ins that can allow your audience to share your content quickly. If your content is helpful, it is likely that your readers will share your content among their own communities. Therefore, tags and bookmarks can provide further exposure.

Only use social media sites that are helpful to your business. Not all social media sites will fit into your social media optimization campaigns. Generally, these types of sites tend to cater to a specific audience. Whether this site caters to a younger audience or a professional audience, the key to social media optimization is to isolate the community that would be interested in your product line.

Integrate your social media strategies. The most effective marketing campaigns are a combination of more than one strategy. Not only will this provide you with more than one avenue to increase your exposure, but you will find that most social media marketing strategies blend well with each other; therefore this is one of your most important marketing strategies.

This is by no means a complete list, but simply a foundation. If you carefully craft your social media optimization you will be able to gain access to users that would be difficult with traditional marketing strategies.