“We're currently in a communication revolution,” said instructor Ben Tedore of the Nevada Small Business Development Center. “The way people are getting information used to be different.”
Attendees were surprised to see social media as one of the available seminars but with its popularity, several were curious.
“I need to find out what social media has to do with government contracting,” said Leslie Martin, owner of MSE Welding and Fabrication LLC. “I'm kind of in awe of how much it's being used.”
Gail Kerr, owner of Squeezy's Cafe, agreed that it is important to pursue because everyone else is.
“I have a cafe where probably the (majority of my customers) are in their 50s, but it is amazing the number of people who are on the computer now,” Kerr said. “I'm sure there's some advantage for us if we find out about it. Economically right now you have to take advantage of everything that can work.”
New forms of advertising
Tedore said social media has changed the way people make purchasing decisions. He said consumers now learn about products and services from other consumers. Meanwhile, advertising seems less trustworthy.
“They want to hear what real people say about these products, not what the products say about themselves,” Tedore said. “They don't trust traditional marketing as much. People are becoming more self empowered. They trust their peers more than what businesses tell them.”
Information sharing occurs mostly through social networking sites, like Facebook, websites and blogs. Blogs are successful because they naturally rank high on search engines. Tedore said search engines look at different web pages and rank them based on key words, new content, content relevancy and the number of page visits. Tedore said blogs produce new content regularly, and they are full of key words on the related topic.
Getting started
Tedore said there are many social networking sites that use different methods to reach people. In addition to Facebook, there are sites like Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, LinkedIn, FourSquare and many more. Creating a page is as simple as visiting the website and following the directions to join.
To start a website or blog, Tedore recommended www.wordpress.org, which provides free website templates.
For those who are new to social media, Tedore recommended starting out slow by creating a personal page on a site like Facebook and looking at how other businesses use it.
“You can learn a lot just by watching what other people do,” Tedore said.
Once a business page or blog is set up, Tedore recommended people increase their fan base by advertising their presence on merchandise like coffee cups or business cards.
He also said it is key to provide relevant content that will benefit the reader, such as sales. He said advertising content will drive readers away.
“Don't spam,” Tedore said. “You always have to provide valuable content to the people who are following you.”
More change to come
Tedore added online advertising is already beginning to change. More and more companies are using personalized advertising software that reads a person's profile on a site like Facebook and tailors the ad to them. Tedore said there is talk of this technology moving from simple website adds to digital billboards.
He said there are also ideas like microchipping products to allow cell phones to scan for coupons. These are just some of the changes to come in the next 10-20 years.
“You can't wait for it to change or you'll be behind on that as well,” Tedore said.
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