The power of social media continues to amaze and delight me. I was on twitter today, and asked my followers what advice they had on email marketing campaigns-my client wants to launch one next month. Within a matter of five minutes, I had six replies with helpful advice and people offering to send me information. That, my friends, is the real power social media has on any blogger. Heck, you don’t even have to have a blog to interact on twitter. So this got me thinking, what else can social media have the power to help you with?
Social Media Helps You Market Your Business
OK, this one might be a no-brainer, as that’s probably the one most people think of. But there’s more to it than you may think. I don’t just mean sites like twitter providing a platform for you to throw your latest link out and get a response. I mean there are some very experienced people out there, and they can help give you guidance and advice on the best ways to market your blog or business, and you get this help for free! You also get opportunities to be a guest blogger on other people’s sites, which not only raises your credibility, but also, provides yet another place for people to find you. Social Media is also a great way of getting exposure for your name, or the name of your business.
Social Media Gets Your Business Exposure
You don’t have to shove your blog down people’s throats to get this exposure either. Every time you make a tweet, or stumble a post or get on Facebook, or whatever social media site you’re on, your name comes up on the screen for everybody to see. My client uses his company’s name as his ID. I use a version of my own name, not Jberry Marketing, but since I’m a consultant, I wanted my own name to be known. You may not think posting, or tweeting, about what you did today is a valuable marketing tool, but if somebody starts to care about you on a personal level, they are much more likely to visit your blog or business; at least to check it out, it nothing else. Social media can also be a powerfull tool in helping those less fortunate than you.
Social Media is an Excellent Organizing Tool
Right now on twitter, Danny Brown and Suze Muse (pardon me if I’ve left anybody off) are promoting a charity that they came up with and organized called the 12k for 12k challenge, I have provided the link here so that you can check out this worthwhile cause for yourself. But my point is that they have never even met in person. They have done all this work via social media. I also heard stories over the holidays about people on social media sites that organized groups of people to go down to local food banks to donate food. Again, most of these people never met in person, they just saw a message on the social media site they were on and decided to respond.
There is no doubt that social media is very powerful in terms of marketing, especially when you are talking about blogs. But there is so much more to it than that. I am just beginning to learn all that it can help me with. What about you? How has social media made a powerful impact on your life?
I’ve added the 12for12 challenge link to my blogroll on the right, for those of you that would like more information.
JBerry Marketing Consultants 
Thanks for the shout out on 12for12k! For the record, the idea was all Danny’s! He was looking for volunteers and I thought it was a fantastic concept so of course wanted to step up and do my part.
It really is amazing what social media can do! Hope you can all get involved in the 12for12k challenge!
My pleasure, it’s a worthy cause. I am sending this out to people I know right now.
Great post on the power of social media. Your really highlight the overall benefits of using the type of services out there.
Seth Goldstein
Goldstein Media LLC
http://www.goldsteinmedia.com – Corporate Site
http://www.sethgoldstein.net – Blog
http://www.twitter.com/sethgoldstein – Twitter Feed
Thank you for your input.
Great post, and spot on about the power that social media has to offer in all walks of life – personal, business, non-profit and more.
What we’re hoping to do with 12for12k is show that a relatively small group of people (social media users) can make a lifelong impact on so many people (offline in the “real world”). It’s an exciting challenge and one that so many people are beginning to get behind – fingers crossed, and thanks for bringing it to your readers’ attention. 🙂
There are still so many people that don’t understand what social media is all about, and I believe it’s up to those of us that utilize it to educate them. Your charity is such a great example of the good we can all do. It’s my pleasure and honor to help spread the word about such a worthy cause.
I liked that you focus on the three key areas that people who are not well versed in the Internet would want to know. That’s an effective, helpful approach. In particular that you’ve concentrated on the benefits (instead of features) using understandable examples. Kudos! Nice post – Thanks.
Thank you. I love getting innput from other bloggers, especially ones I learn so much from. Love your blog!
Great post!!
Today, I posted on my blog about the benefits of this very topic. Let’s just hope people pay attention to the benefits.