What social media sites do you use?

[Mark Logan]

I was just wondering if any members use any of the multitude of social media sites available and if so is it for business or personal use.

I personally use Twitter and Facebook but have recently started to use Delicious, Blipper, Blogger and Blinklist as an experiment in page ranking and site exposure.
I will be using http://screenr.com/ with my Twitter account to create short infocasts on how to do simple tasks with Vista and other software then posting these on my site.

Is anyone else using site such as these and if so have you noticed any changes in your site traffic or sales and could a list of these sites and how we use them be of use to other members?

[Lyndsey Pettigrew]

Hello Mark,

It's Lyndsey from Microspec and The Epos Centre here. I have just registered and started using this site today, so it's all very exciting and new to me. We are primarily a 27 year old computer software business, but I am not one of the technical gurus I am afraid!

We don't actually use any of the social media sites, but from reading what you have said, I think we should be. What is the security like on these sites? We always want to improve our site traffic and so a list of these sites and how you use them would be very helpful to us Mark.

Will look forward to hearing back from you.

Lyndsey

[Rob Willox]

I have been using both Twitter and LinkedIn and testing how they can be used productively for business purposes.

LinkedIn is a B2B social network whereas Twitter is mass-market covering a whole spectrum of participants, purposes and activity.

None of them are primarily for the purposes of direct marketing/advertising but used judiciously can and will produce results but in the medium- to long-term not immediate sales although a number are experimenting with ad delivery.

Like all open networks there is always those who will abuse the system in an attempt to make a quick buck and in the main there attempts are easy to spot and in the case of Twitter you can easily block users trying to attract followers and, of course, only follow those who offer relevant, topical and interesting content.

I won't re-hash already published content as there has been a number of blog posts made relating to twitter already:-

Twitter and tweeting
Twitter blunders
More on twitter

Also, doing a blog search for twitter gives a few more.

The criteria for contributing is one of relevancy to your own stated interest (bio) and following and posting in a constructive way so that others find it of interest and may start following you.

Your own suggestion of providing useful and helpful hints and tips to problems other users may be having is certainly a good way to start building a following. And, of course, providing a sales incentive or offer on the landing page would do no harm at all and not be seen as blatant sales advertising.

They are basically a communication and relationship building medium and as that is an essential element in building a successful business, online or not, used for that purpose can do no harm.

Rob Willox
WebMedia | Design | Analytics | Optimisation | Conversion

[Toby Smith]

Like Rob above and agree without exception that they are a communication and relationship building medium.

In addition to Twitter and Linkedin, I also use Blogger, Social Median and BTtradespace. The latter being particularly "Bing" (MS's challenge to Google) friendly.

I use these platforms to promote my own site, to raise the profile for Falkirk (news, events, tourist info and cinema) as well as my own client base but not in any blatant way. I regard them as only additional vehicles to promote "awareness" and cannot be relied upon for any immediate direct marketing purposes.