Some things i have learned so far this semester. (social media/marketing)

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.