How can social media help in the growth of online business?

[Jerad]

What are the methodologies to take advantage of the ever growing social media for business purpose?

[LadyRheena]

Social Media are the online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as other interest-sharin sites like Reddit and Stumbleupon and blog sites such as Wordpress. You can use them to promote your businesses website and products via social sharing. Social media is the new online equivalent of "word of mouth" and if your company does not have a presence on principle social sites you risk being labelled as old-fashioned and out of touch with your customers.

Social media websites can help support your online PR strategy. They can be used to post company news stories that journalists in your industry may pick up and use. This means media coverage will spread more rapidly online than ever before, which is good news for businesses marketing on the internet. Stay up to date and customer focused with social media campaigns and avoid the "time sinks" and fads to ensure an effective social networking strategy.

It also has good uses for SEO (search engine optimisation) as you can get valuable backlinks for your site via social media posts.

[Sam Anderson]

Along with creating social networking pages, companies continue to add community sections or other areas where visitors can participate in blogging on their Web sites. Blogging is an effective way for users to communicate and the end result is often a growth in Internet traffic. Blogging can even lead to permanent employment.

Now more than ever before, businesses rely on the World Wide Web. With the sheer number of Internet users who participate in social networking, it only makes sense for companies to jump on board and embrace the social networking revolution. You, too, can use social networking to get ahead in your career or small business. Just remember, it's not just your friends who are looking at your page.