Social Media has become of larger and larger importance in the
world of marketing. I have been studying social media marketing this
semester at Snow College in Utah. I have learned many things that I
did not understand before taking these classes, but I decided that I
was not going to just take what was being taught as a 100 percent
truth. I decided to take things into my own hands, and see what does
and does not work. There are a few things that I have personally
learned through this process. One of the biggest things that I have
found is that making connections is truly a vital process. I am not
talking about connections who will click 'like' once on your post, or
maybe even click 'follow' on your blog. I am talking about really
personal connections with others. Its important to remember not to
start off going to someone, or someones site and spamming your links
and screaming here follow me! 'like' this! Etc. All that will get you
is a group of people who are looking for exactly the same thing, to
click a little button, and then never think about that site or person
again. If you take some time to become active in a community or
niche' that you are specializing in before you start spamming out
your links the results will be a lot more long lasting and real.
Another thing that I am learning is that there is a site out there
called stumble upon. I had not really thought about this as a
platform to drive traffic to your site, or even a way to be found at
all until I started to play around with it some more. Surprisingly I
am finding that I get quiet a few page views from posting my articles
and web links into that platform. That way when people are “stumbling
through” pages if yours is in the category they are searching it
can show up. A few things that I have found that are not working so
far are the “quick” “easy” “fast” ways to build followers
and likes. There are some programs and sites out there that may claim
to get you 1000 followers in a matter of an hour. Those sites well,
the ones I looked at do actually get your small follower label to go
up, but most of the ones that add or follow you appear to be nothing
more then computer bots. It also has to gain access to your accounts
to post things for you that end up just spamming your clients and
friends saying things like “click this link for 500 friends a day”
and so on. Fivver does seem to have some legitimate gain x amount of
followers for you for $5.00 adds. I have been yet to try one of
those, but I have a friend here at the school who did, and who
actually had great success with that. I know that I have mentioned it
before, but it really cant be stressed enough to try and avoid being
impersonal. Think about how you would feel if someone who you thought
was doing something really great just ignored you when you sent a
message to them, or a comment on a blog. How would you feel if you
just got the standard response that everyone who makes a comment gets
back, or worse yet, if you felt completely ignored because that
comment never got any response at all? There really isn't any get big
quick things out there when it comes to building your presence online
through social media, but if you stick with it and are sure you work
on it a little bit each day, or a few times a week you will start to
see results. Try not to get too disappointed if in the early going
things don’t just take off and explode for you, that’s not how
most of these big internet celebrities start off. To sum up the
things that I have been learning about lately. Be personal, take an
interest in those who are beginning to take an interest in what you
are doing. Look for new platforms and sites in the social media world
frequently. They are all ways changing and evolving to suit different
needs and demands, and Stay consistent or you may lose that following
you have started to build up.
