Where will social media take you?
With all the social media sites out there (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc), it opens up a whole new world to market yourself, your business, and to share your personal life. I always felt that social media sites were a personal tool to use to communicate with your friends. I now know that social media can connect you with professionals in your same industry which can help build a strong network for future business and idea sharing. There are many different routes you can take when using these tools, you just need to decide which of them is best for you.
Market Yourself
You are your biggest asset, why not market that asset to help you gain more business and connect with people just like you for collaboration? Years ago, the internet consisted mainly of interactive agencies with big portfolio’s without any emphasis on the individual creative members working behind the scenes. Times have changed and you should put yourself in the spotlight. Social media platforms, such as Twitter, can help promote yourself and connect with other professionals.
Market Your Business
There are a lot of businesses that still haven’t jumped on the social marketing wave. Social Media is a great way to spread the word about what your company is doing on a daily basis. Official press releases are slowly becoming a thing of the past with the growing popularity of blogs and micro-blogging tools. People are attracted to information that is connected to social media websites. Why? Because they can easily skip to other information if they don’t like what they are reading.
Share Your Personal Life
Why is this headline the last out of my three examples? Because sharing your personal life through social media websites isn’t the big secret. MySpace paved the way sharing information which has made a huge impact for business professionals.
Taking It to the Next Level
I don’t know where social media will take me in the future. I don’t know if it will continue to be a source of popularity among the top marketing professionals in the world. With everything changing so fast, I just know that it’s important to constantly share information with your peers, continue to read and learn from any internet resource available, and take risks on what will help promote you and your business.
Social media, for me, will continue to be an experimental tool to see where it leads me. I will watch where it takes other people and gain ideas from the best in the industry. I will continue to blog about my experiences, my habits, and my personal beliefs of the social media world.
Without risk, there is no chance for a big reward. Without passion, there is no sense of true accomplishment. And without social media, there is no outlet to connect worldwide like there is today.
Social Media is the future. Let’s sit back to see where it will lead us.
December 1st, 2008 at 4:42 pm
I think that Social Media at this point is misused by most. At least in my circles, I see people spending hours daily on Twitter (much like the old forum & message board addictions). Twitter and the other social media sites have advantages, but not to the detriment of putting energies into other tried-and-true methods of marketing your business & relationship building.
I guess what I’m saying is that “marketing” on Twitter might not be the best goal for *some* and they should see it more as a way of building solid relationships and joint ventures…
What do you think? I’m not questioning your authority — just still watching the whole thing reveal itself like you said.
Thanks for stopping by my blog! N