An Introduction to Social Media (Part 1)

By Lindy Eksteen

What is social media?

In many ways, social media represents exactly what the web is about: sharing & creating content, exchanging ideas and information and collaborating with peers and audiences.

This type of media is what has caused the skyrocketing of content on the Internet. This is because all the various channels enables anyone with an Internet connection to be able to compile content with ease and for no charge either. Social media is very dynamic, because social media has so many individuals that participate.

In a nutshell, social media is designed to be shared and distributed. Sharing content makes it easy to comment on and easy to send on to friends and colleagues. There are also no high costs involved by viewing this media. Because of the ultra connected nature of the web, it means that commenting, sharing and viewing can all be traced and measured to see your success.

Social media can also be referred to as consumer generated media, Web 2.0 and new media.

How does it work?

This type of media completely altered the world in which we do marketing. It should form a key part of your online marketing campaign. Social media is all about the methods we use to invent, connect and share content on the Internet.

It works in a number of ways, but you can see it as a form of constant communication. It is a method of communicating with large audiences in an instant. The moment you post a Facebook message, upload a video onto YouTube or send a tweet, anyone that is following you can see it. This makes it a very unique and effective way of advertising.

This type of media may be time consuming, but if you are willing to put in the effort and hard work, you'll reap the benefits, as this its success has been proven many times over. Social media enables you to infiltrate all the niche markets and capitalize on them, on any sized budget.

It's not only a create tool for sales and to increase traffic to your website and platforms, it can also increase brand awareness and provide excellent exposure for your products and services. Audiences, might not always be aware of your website, but could be well familiar with your Facebook page, as it is an active and engaging platform where users are entertained and involved with your content. They can respond and take part in the conversation happening around your brand.

We all utilize brands every day, like Vodacom, Woolworths etc., but how many of us actually go onto their websites to check their specials and offers on a regular basis? However, if these offers come onto our screens, we'll probably take more notice.

Social media is effective, because it builds up audiences who actively want to know more about your organization and then engage with them. Having people like and trust you, but never talking and engaging with them is similar to having a database of 30 000 people and never mailing them. You have to promote your brand to people and remind them of what you have to offer. Even if some content is only valuable for entertainment or information. Social media is an effective way of doing this in terms of costs and results.

Different types:

1. Bookmarking and aggregating: social curation and sharing of content
2. Content creation: using social channels to create and share content
3. Social networks: social channels that are built around social profiles
4. Location: a subset of social networks that are based on location.

Next we'll be discussing these categories of social media and branching out on the different examples and platforms.

Read more on what exactly social media is and how it works at http://www.snowball.co.za/blog

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An Introduction to Social Media (Part 2)

By Lindy Eksteen

Types of Social Media

These channels can be categorized as:

1. Bookmarking and aggregating: social curation and sharing of content
2. Content creating: using social channels to create and share content
3. Social networks: social channels that are built around social profiles
4. Location: a subset of social networks that are based on location

Bookmarking and aggregating

You can use your browser to "bookmark" websites that you visit often or that you'd like to keep as a reference to come back to. This means that you keep the URL to relocated it easily at a later stage. This also gives you a 'library' of websites that you can store on your PC. Social bookmarking sites allows you to store these links on the web. You can also now use tags to describe what they are and share these lists with others. Some of these websites allow you to submit URLS that other users give a rating on, while others enable you to use the tags saved. Here you can use these saved tags to browse through the libraries that have been compiled.

Remember that websites that made for the intent of bookmarking and aggregating, use chiclets. These are the buttons placed in and around the content that makes it easy to share the article with others.

Example: StumbleUpon

Example: Delicious

Content creating and sharing

One of the first content sharing sites that you'd think of, would most probably be YouTube. Remember though that users also share images, audio and other information as well. If it can be created, it can most definitely be shared. There is a plethora of sites that facilitate video sharing, images and audio (e.g soundcloud) and they're increasingly popular.

The magic word here is "FREE". There are no fees for joining up (whether you are viewing content or uploading it). Although, premium memberships that is paid for, will allow you more features. This means that these sites have LARGE audiences. Did you know that according to Alexa rankings, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world?!

A lot of these services also encourage users to distribute their content. YouTube lets clips and video's be easily embedded into other sites and Flickr has developed quite a few applications and widgets that allow their images to be posted all over the Internet.

Most of these sites rely on advertising to support the free services that they give us. Some has paid for memberships where the advertising would then be free of charge.

Example: Wikipedia

Example: YouTube

Social networks

Social networking is all about forming and maintaining social networks for communities of people online. These communities are like-minded people who share the same activities and interests. Social networking requires using software and making use of the tools of the web to connect and establish relationships with other users.

Sites such as LinkedIn, Myspace and Facebook lets users create personal profiles and timelines and interact with their connections. This is done through the sharing of media, blogging and personal messages. These sites don't only allow you to communicate with people on your own personal friend list, but it allows you to extend beyond this network. Businesses, bands, charities and other organizations can also create profiles and post things online. Just think of Google +. You can even create a business page on one of the most popular search engines world wide.

Example: Facebook

Example: LinkedIn

Location and Social Media

Social media has also been enriched by the introduction of location services like Facebook Places, gowalla and Foursquare. These services lets users "check in" at locations that they visit via mobile devices.

By "checking in", users can share their location with friends and find others that have also done the same. They can compile and add reviews about the venue and certain sites (like Gowalla) also let you upload photos of the location. Foursquare let's you become "Mayor" of your venue when you've visited that particular location frequently and more than any one else.

This type of service is incredibly appealing to marketers, since they can obtain and engage with customers by leveraging them. E.g if your friends see you checking in at a certain place, they'd be more likely to want to go there, especially if your friend has given them a great review.

Location based services also offer specials and rewards to people that have checked into their business. This is a big draw card and incentive to return to the location and share it with their friends. E.g, say you are running Panarotti's Pizzeria, you can offer all "Mayors" of the franchise coupons or discount at any other branch.

Example: Facebook Places

Example: Foursquare

In my next couple of installments, we go into more detail how to use these platforms and track your success.

Read more about the types of social media and which platforms to use at http://www.snowball.co.za/blog

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