There is no question that social media has benefits that are still being discovered each day. From managing an online reputation to positioning yourself for a job, the possibilities are endless. With that being said, a personal brand can be just as important as managing the information and flow of a large corporation.

For individuals there is a balance to strive for between endless self-promotion and providing a value back to the community of your followers and friends on your networks.  Doing this allows users to build up strong connections and to interact with people around the globe or to simply stay in touch with friends who may have otherwise lost track of.

While social media offers a lot of freedom and perks to individuals who utilize them, there are also countless benefits for businesses of all sizes. From micro-businesses to Fortune 500 companies, values are being found daily. However, much like the balance that needs to happen on the individual level, there is a much finer line to walk when coming to businesses.

Granted the CAN-SPAM laws don’t apply to sites like Twitter and Facebook, however both sites offer ways to cut back on rampant spam that clogs feeds from ad and affiliate networks, however with something social comes the term socially responsible and the communities closely monitor themselves.

So how does a business make a splash without crossing that line. While there are varying ideas about this issue, my take is that to make social media work for your company, you need to first offer value to your community through interactions and open and honest conversations with your base. While building up the network, you can also add soft-sells to your network to help drive traffic to your site. It is also important to interact with both existing and potential customers, and to respond to positive and negative comments. This will allow you to build up your reputation and show a commitment to making each customer have a positive experience with your brand.

As your network grows, you can also integrate more of a sales tactic, or build an offshoot account where you simply offer a deal a day or once a week, depending on the time that you have to devote to working on social media. As an example, I spend up to 60 percent of my day working on the social networking efforts of my company.

With a site like Facebook, you have more flexibility to enhance your offers and sales to a customer base. One interesting combination is to run exclusive deals on your fan page that can either be redeemed online or in your store, to help drive traffic to the page, you can promote it on Facebook through a targeted ad or via a link on your site or call out in your marketing materials.  You can also send out emails to your followers within the network to promote an upcoming event, run a poll or simply give business updates.

I’ve seen a number of companies build out their pages and create buzz through contests for best use of a product or funny photo uploaded to the page’s wall. This helps further cement yourself within the community and helps reinforce the brand as well as awareness.

That’s my take and you may completely disagree, however its something that I’ll be implementing with my company’s strategy. The biggest thing to keep in mind is the word balance – don’t slip up like this

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1lqpONbOKY]

There is no question that social media has benefits that are still being discovered each day. From managing an online reputation to positioning yourself for a job, the possibilities are endless. With that being said, a personal brand can be just as important as managing the information and flow of a large corporation.

For individuals there is a balance to strive for between endless self-promotion and providing a value back to the community of your followers and friends on your networks.  Doing this allows users to build up strong connections and to interact with people around the globe or to simply stay in touch with friends who may have otherwise lost track of.

While social media offers a lot of freedom and perks to individuals who utilize them, there are also countless benefits for businesses of all sizes. From micro-businesses to Fortune 500 companies, values are being found daily. However, much like the balance that needs to happen on the individual level, there is a much finer line to walk when coming to businesses.

Granted the CAN-SPAM laws don’t apply to sites like Twitter and Facebook, however both sites offer ways to cut back on rampant spam that clogs feeds from ad and affiliate networks, however with something social comes the term socially responsible and the communities closely monitor themselves.

So how does a business make a splash without crossing that line. While there are varying ideas about this issue, my take is that to make social media work for your company, you need to first offer value to your community through interactions and open and honest conversations with your base. While building up the network, you can also add soft-sells to your network to help drive traffic to your site. It is also important to interact with both existing and potential customers, and to respond to positive and negative comments. This will allow you to build up your reputation and show a commitment to making each customer have a positive experience with your brand.

As your network grows, you can also integrate more of a sales tactic, or build an offshoot account where you simply offer a deal a day or once a week, depending on the time that you have to devote to working on social media. As an example, I spend up to 60 percent of my day working on the social networking efforts of my company.

With a site like Facebook, you have more flexibility to enhance your offers and sales to a customer base. One interesting combination is to run exclusive deals on your fan page that can either be redeemed online or in your store, to help drive traffic to the page, you can promote it on Facebook through a targeted ad or via a link on your site or call out in your marketing materials.  You can also send out emails to your followers within the network to promote an upcoming event, run a poll or simply give business updates.

I’ve seen a number of companies build out their pages and create buzz through contests for best use of a product or funny photo uploaded to the page’s wall. This helps further cement yourself within the community and helps reinforce the brand as well as awareness.

That’s my take and you may completely disagree, however its something that I’ll be implementing with my company’s strategy. The biggest thing to keep in mind is the word balance – don’t slip up like this

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1lqpONbOKY]

There is no question that social media has benefits that are still being discovered each day. From managing an online reputation to positioning yourself for a job, the possibilities are endless. With that being said, a personal brand can be just as important as managing the information and flow of a large corporation.

For individuals there is a balance to strive for between endless self-promotion and providing a value back to the community of your followers and friends on your networks.  Doing this allows users to build up strong connections and to interact with people around the globe or to simply stay in touch with friends who may have otherwise lost track of.

While social media offers a lot of freedom and perks to individuals who utilize them, there are also countless benefits for businesses of all sizes. From micro-businesses to Fortune 500 companies, values are being found daily. However, much like the balance that needs to happen on the individual level, there is a much finer line to walk when coming to businesses.

Granted the CAN-SPAM laws don’t apply to sites like Twitter and Facebook, however both sites offer ways to cut back on rampant spam that clogs feeds from ad and affiliate networks, however with something social comes the term socially responsible and the communities closely monitor themselves.

So how does a business make a splash without crossing that line. While there are varying ideas about this issue, my take is that to make social media work for your company, you need to first offer value to your community through interactions and open and honest conversations with your base. While building up the network, you can also add soft-sells to your network to help drive traffic to your site. It is also important to interact with both existing and potential customers, and to respond to positive and negative comments. This will allow you to build up your reputation and show a commitment to making each customer have a positive experience with your brand.

As your network grows, you can also integrate more of a sales tactic, or build an offshoot account where you simply offer a deal a day or once a week, depending on the time that you have to devote to working on social media. As an example, I spend up to 60 percent of my day working on the social networking efforts of my company.

With a site like Facebook, you have more flexibility to enhance your offers and sales to a customer base. One interesting combination is to run exclusive deals on your fan page that can either be redeemed online or in your store, to help drive traffic to the page, you can promote it on Facebook through a targeted ad or via a link on your site or call out in your marketing materials.  You can also send out emails to your followers within the network to promote an upcoming event, run a poll or simply give business updates.

I’ve seen a number of companies build out their pages and create buzz through contests for best use of a product or funny photo uploaded to the page’s wall. This helps further cement yourself within the community and helps reinforce the brand as well as awareness.

That’s my take and you may completely disagree, however its something that I’ll be implementing with my company’s strategy. The biggest thing to keep in mind is the word balance – don’t slip up like this

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1lqpONbOKY]

There is no question that social media has benefits that are still being discovered each day. From managing an online reputation to positioning yourself for a job, the possibilities are endless. With that being said, a personal brand can be just as important as managing the information and flow of a large corporation.

For individuals there is a balance to strive for between endless self-promotion and providing a value back to the community of your followers and friends on your networks.  Doing this allows users to build up strong connections and to interact with people around the globe or to simply stay in touch with friends who may have otherwise lost track of.

While social media offers a lot of freedom and perks to individuals who utilize them, there are also countless benefits for businesses of all sizes. From micro-businesses to Fortune 500 companies, values are being found daily. However, much like the balance that needs to happen on the individual level, there is a much finer line to walk when coming to businesses.

Granted the CAN-SPAM laws don’t apply to sites like Twitter and Facebook, however both sites offer ways to cut back on rampant spam that clogs feeds from ad and affiliate networks, however with something social comes the term socially responsible and the communities closely monitor themselves.

So how does a business make a splash without crossing that line. While there are varying ideas about this issue, my take is that to make social media work for your company, you need to first offer value to your community through interactions and open and honest conversations with your base. While building up the network, you can also add soft-sells to your network to help drive traffic to your site. It is also important to interact with both existing and potential customers, and to respond to positive and negative comments. This will allow you to build up your reputation and show a commitment to making each customer have a positive experience with your brand.

As your network grows, you can also integrate more of a sales tactic, or build an offshoot account where you simply offer a deal a day or once a week, depending on the time that you have to devote to working on social media. As an example, I spend up to 60 percent of my day working on the social networking efforts of my company.

With a site like Facebook, you have more flexibility to enhance your offers and sales to a customer base. One interesting combination is to run exclusive deals on your fan page that can either be redeemed online or in your store, to help drive traffic to the page, you can promote it on Facebook through a targeted ad or via a link on your site or call out in your marketing materials.  You can also send out emails to your followers within the network to promote an upcoming event, run a poll or simply give business updates.

I’ve seen a number of companies build out their pages and create buzz through contests for best use of a product or funny photo uploaded to the page’s wall. This helps further cement yourself within the community and helps reinforce the brand as well as awareness.

That’s my take and you may completely disagree, however its something that I’ll be implementing with my company’s strategy. The biggest thing to keep in mind is the word balance – don’t slip up like this

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1lqpONbOKY]