Pugliese on PR
What is social networking?
By Tina L. Pugliese, APR, Pugliese Public Relations
Social networking, also referred to as social media, encompasses many Internet-based tools that make it easier for people to listen, interact, engage and collaborate with each other. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, message boards, and countless others have caught on like wildfire.
By its very nature, social networking is interactive. You can tell anyone anything about your opinions and experiences — and vice versa — through blogs, Facebook pages, videos and even 140-character messages called tweets. You can also build communities based on common interests, causes and concerns. And since social networking is here to stay, most businesses will need to know how to use it.
Here’s a sample of today’s most popular social networking tools as they relate to your small business:
Blogs are sites that people set up to provide information and opinions about events, ideas or anything else they want to discuss. Blogs can include links to other related sites, photos, videos and sound as well as text.
Facebook is a social networking site where you can set up a profile, join different communities, and connect with friends. It is the heavyweight of social networking in the U.S. and is great for keeping in touch with people you care about and finding people you are out of touch with. You can create a fan page for your business or start or join a group related to your interests. At this writing, more than 500 million people currently use Facebook and more than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook.
LinkedIn is a social networking site with about 60 million members. While it shares a lot of the same features and capabilities you will find on Facebook, LinkedIn focuses specifically on helping people build career and business communities. It is useful to search for consultants and contractors, identify people in companies you hope to do business with. It has also become a major source for posting professional job openings. If you are a consultant, headhunter, or sell business services, you definitely need to check out LinkedIn.
Twitter is the Internet darling of the moment, allowing users to send very short messages (limited to 140 characters) known as "tweets" using either a computer or a cell phone. You can "tweet" about things small business people would find interesting or sometimes amusing. Twitter's a good way to keep your name in front of people.
YouTube is a site to share and watch videos. This site is all about videos, so you may think it has nothing to do with business. But businesses have discovered it is a great way to provide information to prospects and customers. Why not take some video of the products you sell or of you describing your services (or video testimonials) and upload them to YouTube? Then, you can direct prospects to YouTube to check it out.
Tina Pugliese's columns on public relations appear in Palm Beach Business.com every other Monday. Her previous column can be found here.
Tina L. Pugliese, APR is an executive coach and counselor for Pugliese Public Relations, a communications firm in Boynton Beach, Florida. Pugliese is an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America, and is the author of the book, Public Relations for Pharmacists, and e-books, Marketing Your Business for Success, How To Work With The Media, Public Relations Manual — A Guide for Entrepreneurs, and the PR Survival Kit. She can be reached at (561) 889-3575 and by email at Tina@PugliesePR.com. Her web site is www.PugliesePR.com.
Article excerpted from e-book, PR Survival Kit, by Tina L. Pugliese, APR.
