You’ve probably heard it about a million times, and we think it’s pretty clear: every business can benefit from social media integration, as long as it is done right. Social Media is the act of engaging, communicating and managing your brand on a sliding scale from 1-on-1 to millions at a time. The key is to be genuine, dynamic and compelling. Also, it helps to understand that there are social niches, just like when advertising on television or print media, and it is more effective to have an understanding of the audience you’re communicating to.  Most people don’t consider that different messages travel better on different social media mediums.

There are companies out there that will try to convince you that Social Media is a necessity but won’t try to explain what is most important: how it will effect your bottom line. Seeing the importance of Social Media as it relates to your search engine rankings (explained below), we’ve monetized Social Media:

$ Made from Search Engines – $ Spent on Social Media = Gross Return on Social Media Efforts

Ways to Profit off this Social Media Stuff

Unlike traditional marketing and advertising methods, social media operates in real-time, and is conducted as a dialogue. Exposing your company, brand or product can yield highly valuable feedback about the current public perception of your company. That feedback can immediately be incorporated into improving your brand.  Basically it allows the world to be your focus group.

Brand Reality Check

Business would be easy if we were all perfect and no one criticized our brands, but this is reality.  Taking the feedback from Social Media and addressing that feedback enables businesses to stay current and profitable in a highly volatile setting, because whether you put yourself online or not – someone is going to.  Between the rip-off, rant, and squawker sites out there, if your not out there being a positive force for your business, who will be?

Reputation Management

Using social media to monitor your brand can be done through a variety of powerful ways. Arguably one of the biggest benefits from engaging in online reputation management is the ability to track and improve the perception of your brand instantaneously. Watching what people are saying about you and adjusting accordingly is the best way to improve your business.

Buzz & Link Building

Think about this: When was the last time you posted an ad and someone cut it out and sent it to a million of their friends? Right. That has never happened.

Social media is not just a buzzword. It is a real, online marketing tactic that is being implemented by brands who are looking to gain a competitive edge in an ever-changing marketing landscape. Being the fastest mechanism for complex information sharing, social media is also a place to start buzz about your company or brand.

A valuable effect of generating buzz through social media is an increase of links pointing back to your website. Here’s how it works: the more popular your social media content becomes, the more links you’ll receive from people who support your work, and the better your page will rank in search engines – and we all know what that means, more traffic.

Understanding Social Media

Ok, now we know how important this Social Media thing is, now lets get into dissecting it. There are several common misconceptions about the revelation that is Social Media. Here it is, in common words, by the experts:

• Your company is not doing social media right just because you have a Facebook and Twitter page.

• Social media is not just a fad. Just get that out of your head. Newspapers will go before Facebook does.

• Social media marketing is not a short-term strategy.

• Social media is not a way to push messages. It’s about making stuff worth sharing.