Social Media Business Intelligence

Planning Social Media Into Your Website   by William Bradely

The fundamental reason why consumers build social bookmarking profiles is to create an identity to share information. After doing so, they are able to interact on social networking sites on a regular basis, and marketers can use this behavior to their advantage by:

1. Monitoring their favorite brands

2. Reading about new products

3. Learning about competitor products

4.
Identifying with other users

5. Seeing what friends and family find interesting

6. Finding out what the latest trends are

7. Identifying new products to purchase

In order to create a profile on many of today’s leading social bookmarking sites; a user simply creates a screen name, login information, and possibly uploads a picture. Depending on the theme of the site, the user will then go ahead and ‘upload’ the relevant information such as links or products to their profile pages. After that, they can become a part of a community.

Community members and leaders rise to the top ‘ranks’ of the site based on a variety of factors including:

1. Level of activity

2. User feedback

3. Number of products reviewed or discussions created

4. Popularity within the community

5. Number of fans

In many ways, social bookmarking is considered to be a form of collective intelligence. Collective intelligence based on a few trends in the marketplace, news, or other information can provide very important data to a third party observer. Filtering data has become even more important today as it provides insights and information on direct experiences with many of the goods and services available in the marketplace.

Social media offers the latest roundup of online technologies that is based on the concept of community. Sharing opinions, posting comments, participating in discussion boards, and simply exchanging media files are all facets of social media on the web today, and social bookmarking and networking are just a couple of these online activities.

Knowing how to develop your website so that it is conducive to social media applications can help you interact with your customers in a variety of new ways, and ultimately, lead to the traffic levels you desire. Increased traffic is a necessary result of innovation, and attractive websites that encourage user interaction are making the business of marketing much easier.

Social media sites encourage users to set up a profile and interact with other community members. Communities and niche channels develop organically, with limited effort from a company or site owner. By joining some of these networks as a business entity, you can create a valuable presence with a variety of customers and find out what they are most interested in.

Submitting valuable articles and content, and then sharing it in a niche community, is an excellent way to create a positive presence in the world of social media, but there are some specific steps involved when publishing on the web. SEO-friendly content is not the only way to develop a presence, as there is an element of interacting with community members involved as well.

But why is social media so important in your everyday business and marketing efforts? What role does it play in reaching your target market?

These are both questions that many website owners and businesses ask, and determining the effectiveness of social media will be a part of your internet marketing strategy. Social media is quickly becoming one of the web’s fastest growing online activities, a place for customers in a variety of markets and niche communities to learn, educate others, and interact with other buyers.

As a result, it is in your best interest to track and gauge different patterns. Consider social media just one channel to accurately gauge your customer’s interests, tastes, and preferences. Each contributor is essentially volunteering testimonials on products, likes, dislikes, and other information that was once only available from direct market surveys or interviews. Social media platforms offer you some insight on what the customer truly wants at any given time.

Developing your website so that it uses at least two to three of today’s leading social media technologies can help boost traffic with less and less direct marketing efforts.

Consider the value for social media activities such as:

1. Wikipedia

2. Social networking communities

3. Video sharing

4. Virtual reality and events

5. Online audio episodes

6. Livecasting

7. Media sharing

About the Author

Now retired I spend much of my time leaning more about SEO, Affiliate Marketing tactics & Web 2.0. We here at the S2 Network have just completed the most complete SEO training course available. We hope you enjoy as well as benefit from this article. Get more information like this at the link below.

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Social Media and Business Intelligence

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