Social Networking: Does It Work?

Social networking is all the latest rage in marketing today. And for a good reason, too. It is an extremely effective tool which, if you use it well, can really help your business. If you are not familiar with the term social networking, it refers to online communities and groups such as Ecademy, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on. It is a place where people share business and social news, incite discussions, increase their contacts and raise their online presence.

By virtue of being online you are able to make thousands of connections in a fraction of the time it would take to meet that many people in person. You are more likely to make contacts across the country and around the world that you could without an online presence. This gives you an even larger network, which means more people are forwarding your details to people who could use your services, etc. This also means that you have a wealth of information at your fingertips for other business services that you could utilise for your company (or your life!).

Another brilliant aspect of social networking is the multiplication of your information. So for example, if I post information about my Virtual Assistant services on Twitter, I have about three thousand people following me who will see it. And if even 1 of those people ReTweet me (re-post that information), then I have another 30 postings about my business for the one I put up. And those 30 postings are going out to all the people following the person who ReTweeted me. This means that one little post about my business is now reaching 10,000 to 20,000 people. This is the power and the magic of social networking. And to answer your suspicions, yes I have gotten not only great contacts but also new business from sites like Twitter and Ecademy.

A final and hugely important element of social networking is that it builds your online presence. This is very important to any business as the world today is online. People are more likely to go to the Internet before to look for businesses than they are to go out driving around. Since social networking includes various posts, blogs and listings, it vastly increases your SEO margin and makes you more likely to get noticed out of the sea of businesses. Also, each site can be used to point contacts back to your website to promote your business.

But for all of its many benefits, there is one major drawback the amount of time it consumes. Apart from needing to be careful about the amount of time that can be lost in just browsing the web or refining your profile, social networking does require that you invest time into it every day. I hear the same complaint at every networking event I attend I simply do not have the time. The good news is that you can hire a Virtual Assistant to monitor and build your profile for you. We do marketing packages that include comprehensive social networking, and can tailor our services to suit your needs.

So in short, the answer is: Yes! Social networking really does work. I will say, however, that it does not replace getting out there and meeting people face to face. I am an avid supporter of networking events and highly encourage you to attend as many as you can. However, social networking is a brilliant tool to supplement face to face contact, and should be a key element to any marketing strategy.