Social Media Trading

You’ve heard the stories about the mechanic whose car is an old crock or the plumber who has leaking taps at home. Well, I am currently the social media evangelist who is doing just the same as the mechanic and plumber. I have been so busy tending to clients that I have neglected my own social media sites.

When it comes to growing your small business as a brand on social media, it is all about consistency. Regular posting on all of your social media platforms is what counts. Without regular posting, you simply vanish from the radar screen due to the millions of others who are posting regularly.

In my tardiness with keeping up my posts with this blog, I have clearly seen the lack of growth. So, I will rectify matters by taking note of the following tips:

• Post on each of your soc
  

One of the latest social media tools to come onto the market recently is Home Page Pays, a great add-on, made available by Smart Media Technologies.

It’s a great product before the added benefit of being able to earn cash while surfing the Internet.

It is well worth trying as there is a free add-on and different packages that offer better earning capabilities. As I have already said, it is worth adding on for the great features, such as daily, weekly and monthly competitions and access to the smart library, My University, bargain finder and more.

Pinterest is the latest social media platform that is driving the marketing world into a frenzy. What started purely as a fun platform to pin things that interested you onto different online pinboards has now been squeezed into a marketing tool.

Not that the developers of Pinterest will be worried, as it is one of the fastest growing platforms currently, with women in particular flocking to sign up for the joys of many wasted but relaxing hours.

So how has such a platform become a marketing tool? The easiest way to use Pinterest to market your small business is to make sure to have your website in your profile and to have at least 1 pinboard dedicated to your business.

Then you need to pin pictures or videos of interesting things that relate to your business. Businesses that are graphic in nature are easier to market, however with the rise of infographics and videography, nearly anything works.

Make sure to not only highlight your own business but to show items of interest in your industry. Also make sure to put links as far as possible to drive traffic to your website, Facebook page or blog.

As for the rest, get pinning, but beware…. You’ll soon be addicted!

photo by Search Engine People Blog

Social Media Trading holds workshops for beginners in the different social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and blogging. All of the workshops are held in Lonehill, Johannesburg from 09h00-12h00 and are R500 per person. The classes are facilitated by Karen Lancaster and there are only 6 people per session to ensure personal attention.

By the end of the workshop, you will understand the basics of the particular social media platform covered. You would have set up your own page or account and will know how to maintain and market it.

Everyone brings their own laptop and practically works on it during the workshop. It is a relaxed, non-threatening environment and many online friendships have been formed in past workshops.

Here is the new schedule for the social media workshops in 2012:

March

Sat 10^th – Facebook Fundamentals

Tue 13^th – Basics of Blogging

April

Sat 7^th – Twitter 4 Twits

Tue 17^th – Get to Grips with Google+

May

Sat 12^th – Facebook Fundamentals

Tue 15^th – LinkedIn Logic

June

Sat 9^th – Basics of Blogging

Tue 12^th – Twitter 4 Twits

July

Sat 14^th – Facebook Fundamentals

Tue 17^th – Get to Grips with Google+

August

Tue 14^th – LinkedIn Logic

Sat 18^th – Twitter 4 Twits

September

Tue 11^th – Twitter 4 Twits

Sat 15^th – Facebook Fundamentals

October

Sat 13^th – Twitter 4 Twits

Tue 16^th – Basics of Blogging

November

Sat 10^th – Facebook Fundamentals

Tue 13^th – Get to Grips with Google+

Please contact me at karidbn@gmail.com to book your place.

In these difficult times when everyone is desperately trying to keep their heads above water, we have decided to expand Social Media Trading’s services to include Home Page Pays to offer more value and opportunities to our clients.

Home Page Pays is a worthy product from Smart Media Technologies that gives us the opportunity to earn money while we browse the internet. It has a host of other features as well, so watch the video to get more info.

We are very excited to be a part of this and invite you to visit our Home Page Pays page for your free browsing experience.

What exactly is LinkedIn all about? Should I be using LinkedIn as a professional or as a business?

These days with so many social media platforms demanding your time and attention, it is worth checking out which ones work best for you.

The following points illustrate what and who LinkedIn is best used for:

Consultants

LinkedIn can be used to connect and network with potential customers and to expose them to their services and offerings.

B2B Marketers

Those who are in Business to Business marketing can announce new products or services on LinkedIn.

Sales  

LinkedIn can be used to do a little research on prospects before making contact. This helps to know some of the prospect’s interests or needs before a meeting.

Jobs

LinkedIn can be used for seeking employment or for hiring an employee. It can be used to expand the circle of business contacts and to remain visible.

Entrepreneurs

Those in new enterprises can use LinkedIn to create exposure and build awareness of the new venture and to generate leads for business.

Businesses

Small businesses use LinkedIn to network with customers and to reach out to new clients. Larger businesses can use LinkedIn as a marketing tool to let people know about their products or services.

Whereas Facebook is fairly informal and Twitter is micro, LinkedIn is the professional face of social media networking. It has many wonderful tools and is well worth the investment of your time.

Pic by smi23le

2012 will be a year of leaps and jumps in social media. Social media is definitely here to stay and it is forging forward at an incredible pace that makes it difficult for the man in the street to keep up. The following are some of the areas to look out for during the year.

The Expansion of Social Media Sites

Whereas previously Facebook, Twitter and Blogging were the major players in social media, there are now a whole new set of social media sites that have joined the race, such as Foursquare, Google+ and Steply. There are also many sharing sites now that focus on particular topics such as Goodreads for booklovers and GetGlue for entertainment. The best is to to look up the new sites and decide which will suit your needs best and stick to three or four sites. Otherwise, it becomes extremely time consuming. Rather focus on what works best for you.

The Growth of Photo and Video Sites

Photosharing and video sites have had phenomenal growth and are likely to continue to grow in popularity in 2012. Photosharing sites like Instagram, Steply and others are great fun and are becoming part of the social network experience. YouTube, which has always been popular, has become more of a social media tool recently.

The Use of Scheduling Apps

Third party apps that allow you to schedule your Facebook posts and tweets are also growing in popularity as the amount of posts becomes more important. Many of them are including Google+ as well. Buffer seems to be the app that is highlighted the most these days.

Keeping Up with the Social Media Sites

The biggest challenge is to keep up with all of the continual changes with the social media sites. We are becoming accustomed to Facebook’s regular changes, but now Twitter and YouTube have also joined the ranks with new changes to help the user get the most out of using the site. The best way to stay abreast of the changes is to keep playing with the sites and using them as much as possible. Subscribe to a few good social media sites and read a lot too.

The debate continues between facebook and google+ fans. Which is the better platform? Facebook fundis rave about all the facebook features and blame google+ of trying to replicate them. Google+ gurus harp on about the benefits of google+ and accuse facebook of stealing some of their ideas. At the end of the day, it pretty much about personal choice.

I have been dabbling a little with google+ and have resorted to using both facebook and google+ for fun and for business purposes. The way I see it is that they both have features worth using, and best of all, they have different target audiences. So I end up reaching more people by using both.

In future posts I will look at some of the advantages of facebook and of google+

One of the greatest challenges of social media is the effort it takes to keep up to date. Every time we seem to get the hang of a social media platform, it changes and we seem to start all over again.

Take Facebook as an example. In the last year there have been so many changes, both known and not so well known. A couple of months back every wall on Facebook was full of comments moaning about the changes, but the moans have vanished now as everyone became accustomed to the new look. But be careful, don’t relax too much, because there are changes about to reveal themselves yet again.

So, how do we keep up?

Play with Social Media

Well in my very humble experience, I find the best way is to firstly keep playing with social media. The more I play, the more I learn and discover. No real shortcuts and rather time-consuming, but a lot of fun.

Subscribe to Blogs and Newsletters

Secondly, subscribe to a few good blogs that deal with social media. Many of them send out regular newsletters that are packed full of news and view and all the latest social media happenings.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google+

I find many interesting updates on my Facebook wall, Twitter timeline and Google+ stream. Everyone else is keeping up to date, and by reading their links, I also keep abreast of the latest news.

LinkedIn Groups

Join a few LinkedIn groups that are about social media. It is also a source of what’s new and happening in the social networking scene.

The big trick is to have the time to go through all of these articles, but as we learn to scan-read faster and faster, so it becomes feasible. The articles that are most interesting are worth pursuing a little further. As the info gathers in our heads, we find that we are becoming familiar with this wonderful networking world, and believe it or not, are almost keeping up with social media!