Spring is here and I felt like a clean, fresh start. We have spent the last 7 months on two large development projects, and we upgraded our website, so we decided the blog needed a new fresh beginning.
The old blog had a few of my favorite posts, so I decided I would to start by updating a few past articles and started with Social Media. As I read through them, it was like going through a time machine. It brought me back to a time, not so long ago, when people were laughing at Twitter, didn’t understand the usefulness of LinkedIn, and Facebook was for high school students. If you would mention Facebook or Twitter for business, most were met with resistance.
How perspectives have changed. Early adapters recognized the potential, but to be honest my own expectations have been exceed, especially with Facebook. Two years ago when our design team began developing Facebook Pages for clients, Facebook had less than 2.18% of online traffic. Today it has become a social phenomenon making up 7.07%, compared to Google at 7.03%, and 20 million people becoming fans of Pages each day, enabling business and brands to drive customer awareness.
Today, Facebook is one of the most powerful and useful social media services for brands, with over 3 million active Pages and growing. There are 1.5 million local businesses on Facebook today and 20 million people becoming fans of Pages each day. If you are in brand or business, you should take another look at Facebook. It might just surprise you.
LinkedIn is a company that was created on one simple mantra “Relationships Matter”. They have become one of the most widely used professional networking sites of today. The site has grown and has added more interactive functionality for sharing.
The LinkedIn Answers, similar to Google Answers or Yahoo! Answers, has grown considerably and is a fast and effective method to get answers to business related questions, from your network and from industry experts. It even has features for jobs seekers or professionals wanting to expand in their careers with new opportunities.
And if you haven’t heard of Twitter yet, you are missing the largest surprise to come from social media in my opinion. I remember myself asking what Twitter was two years ago and was lucky to have people on LinkedIn help me learn and experiment. It is instant information whether you have a question, need information or want to see what the world topic is currently trending. Many applications, but Tweetmeme is one of my favorite sites to catchup quickly, but there are hundreds of others available.
All of these services have upgraded iPhone, Blackberry applications, helping you stay on top of your networks and easily communicate or reach out in a moment.
Take a quick and free peek at what people are saying about your brand or business with one of these free services, such as Addictomatic, it is quick and easy. Or, Setup a simple Google Alert that sends you an email each time your name, your brand, product or services are mentioned on the internet.
If you want to see more including simple monitoring charts visit Sensidea’s website and download Social Seek’s for your desktop and has a free iPhone application.
I am most surprised by how quickly Facebook and Twitters popularity has grown in the past few years. I look forward to seeing the future.
Tags: addictomatic, facebook, facebook pages, Linkedin, professional networking sites, relationships matter, tweetmeme, twitter
