DBS Internet Marketing and Social Media in Lincolnshire can help you with all your social media needs for your business, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. This post provides some information about social media, why it is important to your business, and the different forms it can take.
Social media is a way of communicating with people and providing them with information whilst interacting with them at the same time through the internet. Key social media sites include the social networking site Facebook, the microblogging site Twitter, and the online video sharing site YouTube.
Many of our clients ask us if they really need to be on social media sites and if so what benefits can be gained from having a social media presence. Ultimately, social media is what you make of it. But if you are creative, then we feel that it can benefit you in the following ways.
Firstly it is a quick and easy way for you to communicate with your clients and likewise for them to communicate back with you. It is a far more efficient and easy way of having a dialogue than letter, telephone or email, as it allows you to communicate with a large number of clients or potential clients all at once just by posting a quick comment or status update, perhaps with a link to your website, which takes a matter of seconds.
Using social media can therefore help you to strengthen ties with your clients, as it encourages dialogue between you easily. It is also a good way of retaining clients who might otherwise have only used you as a one off. For example, if somebody has done business with a company and they are impressed with that work, they might try to find them on Facebook or Twitter in order to “like” them, and follow them to see if they have any interesting news or deals. This then means that because you are both connected and because you are regularly posting updates which they see, you are fresh in their mind if they require the service or product that you provide again.
It also means you can pass on news and offers to other people who are interested in your field. If friends of your friends see that they have “liked” you on Facebook or “+1ed” you on Google, they may choose to click on your page and look at what you have to offer. Therefore, social media is a good way of attracting new clients by spreading the word.
Being on social media sites also makes you look like a relatively “early adopter”. We feel that having a presence in social media has become somewhat similar to having a website in the early 2000s; whilst it is not essential to your business currently, more and more businesses are on social media and more and more people are using social media as an alternative to conventional search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Therefore, the expectation that you should have a presence is growing rather than shrinking – if people search for you on social media and find you are not on there now, they tend to wonder why. Just as it became essential for businesses to have a website, it is heading the same way with social media.
Therefore, it is better to join sooner rather than later, as if you choose not to be on sites like Facebook and Twitter then you will increasingly find yourself in the minority, and will probably find yourself having to play catch up in a few years when everyone else is on there. We feel that now is the time for companies to embrace social media if they haven’t already done so, and are here to help businesses make that leap.
To find out more about the different social media services that DBS Internet Marketing can set up for you, click through to the following pages:
Finally, for anyone who still isn’t sure, it is worth remembering that Facebook is the second most used website in the world, YouTube is the third most used website in the world, and Twitter is in the top ten most used websites in the world. Google is top of that list.
Friday, 3 February 2012
Tuesday, 17 January 2012
Why you won’t be able to access Wikipedia on Wednesday
Wikipedia will be offline for 24 hours on Wednesday 18th January as part of the protest against anti-piracy laws which will be debated in the US Congress. It is the most well known site of a number of websites taking part in the action by blacking out their website for 24 hours. The site is opposed to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) currently being debated in the USA.It is the first time ever that Wikipedia has taken such action. The founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, said on the BBC: "Proponents of SOPA have characterised the opposition as being people who want to enable piracy or defend piracy. But that's not really the point. The point is the bill is so over broad and so badly written that it's going to impact all kinds of things that don't have anything to do with stopping piracy." Wikipedia has said that the bills will be “devastating to the free and open web”.
On Saturday the White House issued a statement saying "While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet."
Twitter has refused to join the protest however, with its CEO Dick Costolo tweeting “Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish”. Rupert Murdoch supports the bills and has criticised President Obama for his stance.
Microsoft and Yahoo! Search alliance starts ad testing
Microsoft and Yahoo! have sent out emails marking the start of the New Year to explain to their customers how they expect 2012 to unfold in terms of the Microsoft and Yahoo! Search Alliance. To read the previous DBS Internet Marketing blogpost on the Yahoo! and Microsoft Search Alliance, click here.
Their key aim is to have Microsoft Advertising adCenter provide the paid search results for Yahoo! sites in the UK, Ireland and France during the first half of 2012. It has already been implemented in the US, Canada and India.
As part of that transition, they intend as early as 17th January to start testing the delivery of paid search results from adCenter on Yahoo! traffic. They say that there is nothing you need to do in preparation for the test and that the ad test will be limited to a small percentage of Yahoo! traffic, but do warn that you may see some fluctuations in your usual adCenter campaign traffic. Microsoft Advertising say that “as a routine best practice, we recommend that you closely monitor your campaigns and prepare to increase your budget if it is more than 80 per cent depleted.” Yahoo have said that tests will continue until the transition is complete, and urge people not to draw any conclusions from what they observe during the tests as the results may not be indicative of future performance will full Yahoo! and Microsoft volumes.
Microsoft added that they will also soon be “improving your adCenter campaign management experience” with simplified location targeting. They say that this will help you reach more relevant users with new Language and Location targeting options, which will replace the option to target by Language and market. The changes will enable you to reach users in multiple locations that speak the same language, and allow you to select locations you wish to target at the campaign or ad group level, from bundled countries to the individual city level. Microsoft strongly recommends that you check your ads are serving the locations you want after the change has been rolled out.
Their key aim is to have Microsoft Advertising adCenter provide the paid search results for Yahoo! sites in the UK, Ireland and France during the first half of 2012. It has already been implemented in the US, Canada and India.
As part of that transition, they intend as early as 17th January to start testing the delivery of paid search results from adCenter on Yahoo! traffic. They say that there is nothing you need to do in preparation for the test and that the ad test will be limited to a small percentage of Yahoo! traffic, but do warn that you may see some fluctuations in your usual adCenter campaign traffic. Microsoft Advertising say that “as a routine best practice, we recommend that you closely monitor your campaigns and prepare to increase your budget if it is more than 80 per cent depleted.” Yahoo have said that tests will continue until the transition is complete, and urge people not to draw any conclusions from what they observe during the tests as the results may not be indicative of future performance will full Yahoo! and Microsoft volumes.
Microsoft added that they will also soon be “improving your adCenter campaign management experience” with simplified location targeting. They say that this will help you reach more relevant users with new Language and Location targeting options, which will replace the option to target by Language and market. The changes will enable you to reach users in multiple locations that speak the same language, and allow you to select locations you wish to target at the campaign or ad group level, from bundled countries to the individual city level. Microsoft strongly recommends that you check your ads are serving the locations you want after the change has been rolled out.
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