Not long ago, I made a tweet about a blog that I had digged in reference to a podcast about a wiki.

What?! The content managers of the Oxford English Dictionary must be working over-time! The advent of Social Media has resulted in a surge of internet-based applications for people to broadcast themselves to the world. Some bloggers suggest that people are turning away from buying from brands and moving towards buying from people alone.

47% of internet users now read blogs at least once a month. That’s an almighty amount of people. According to Hitwise, October traffic to the top 25 online social networks surpassed traffic to online e-mail services such as Hotmail and Gmail.
So how can you access this new audience? At Hot PJ, we have been experimenting with a number of the more popular social media methods and recording our results. See the end of this newsletter for links.

1.    Facebook – Internally valued at US$8 billion, Facebook is the leading social network site and the 5th most visited website in the world.

Facebook is not just a resource for people to share their holiday photos with the world. If you have a Facebook profile you can create a separate Facebook page. This is a profile of a company which provides a facility for users to show their appreciation of that company, receive updates on news and events, write reviews and take part in discussion groups.

If you are a Facebook user, search for “Hot Pyjama Productions” to view our page.

2.    YouTube – Bought in 2006 by Google for US$1.6 billion, YouTube lets you upload videos and embed them on your own site.

If you have a product or service that can be best described visually, or you already provide seminar events that you would like to promote through showing high-lights of past seminars, YouTube is a fantastic low cost way to achieve this.

YouTube also provides an extensive amount of information into who is viewing your videos, from geographic regions to gender and age groups (as long as the viewer has a YouTube account). View our seminar video on the Hot PJ website.

3.    Twitter – Is a facility to provide updates to your followers in 140 characters or less.

The best way to build your Twitter network is to visit websites of popular business figures in your region and check to see if they have a link to follow them on Twitter.

Once you are connected to them, you can view other people who are following them and connect to them as you choose. You will soon be surprised how many people you know that are on Twitter already.  Follow my updates (and see my own attempts at understanding Twitter!) by visiting www.twitter.com/marklincoln.

4.    LinkedIn – LinkedIn is very much about “who you know”.

Similar to Twitter, you can soon build up a network of contacts and view information on your contact’s contacts. If you think you can be of service, or require the services, of someone you can request to be introduced by a contact who is known to you both. Personal recommendations are a far stronger character reference than your own written profile.

LinkedIn also allows you to post a question and receive a number of replies from many industry experts and professionals.

You can view my profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/marklincoln. To add yourself as a contact you will need to enter my e-mail address.

5.    Made From New Zealand – Being Kiwi is hot right now and fellow Kiwis like to look after their own.

If you are “made from New Zealand”, you can go to MadeFromNewZealand.com, check out Hot PJ and then add your business for free. You can then become a “fan” of companies you like and join networks of like-minded individuals. Join up and become a fan of Hot PJ!

All of these methods cost nothing but your time and can become a great way to increase your internet presence and direct people to your site.

Don’t forget to be wary of keeping your professional life separate from your personal life. I actually have two Facebook profiles – one personal profile (that does not appear in search results) for family and old school friends to share their photos and updates with me, and one professional profile that allows me to connect with business friends and associates.

Links:

www.facebook.com
www.youtube.com/hotpyjama
www.twitter.com/marklincoln
www.linkedin.com/in/marklincoln
http://www.madefromnewzealand.com/businesses/hot-pyjama-productions

By Mark Lincoln, BDM at Hot PJ

Posted on November 24th, 2008 by Wendy Riley-Biddle
Filed under: Marketing