Why you should you pay heed to social media?
Surveys and extensive ones at that in various countries have revealed that :
- 89.2% of people trust a fellow’s experience over a critic’s professional review.
- People are 3 times more akin to trust the opinions of their peers over advertisements while making purchasing decisions
- A single friend’s recommendation has outweighed 150 Advertisements on an average.
Everyone today knows about google and wiki. They have become the primary source of information in this day and age. Gone have the days of yellow pages and telephone directories – that had to be kept safe ; but never were found right when we needed them the most.
Social media sites are growing like anything. They have become he largest category as of today ; on the Web, effectively multiplying internet traffic by a factor of two.
Studies indicate that this viral outflow and inflow is not headed for saturation any time soon. As of today if we look at the chunks of the pie >
o About 76% of proactive online users have been to a blog
o 44% have a blog of their own.
o 39% have enrolled to one or another RSS
o 51% have joined atleast one social network
o 55% have uploaded their photos
o 86% have watched more than one video clip.
If we pause to look at the influence of Service & Sales-Oriented websites on buying decisions ;it has increased exponentially over the past half-decade. According to a survey, 71% of customers noted that the company website had some influence over their ultimate decision -to buy or abort[/b].
We live in the realm of Web 2.0 , if you have not been a part of it you are sure missing out on a lot of crucial bits and pieces that may be pivotal in shaping the future both collectively and individualistically.
Communicating with your customers and prospective customers is of the essence, business as we know it today is not all about your products and services. It has been infiltrated by a new species – the customers. If you are not customer-centric ; then you may as well close the shutter , put your money in a bank and reap the interest in your retirement; business is not meant for you
SEO in Social media is more than just about communications and connectivity, it is a much more potent and diverse tool than people conceive it. If done effectively ; it can generate a lot of buzz for the product. People are short on time and usually don’t like checking the other pages of the search engine results –other than the first one ; do you ?
Search Engine Optimization[/b] has many people confused. Let us lay down its basics first. Actually it is the process of taking a page built by supposedly human programmers and making it potable for both humans and search engine bots- which they aren’t initially. (You have not seen the mess people make in algorithms – believe me; doesn’t get any worse than debugging it.)
As compared to the past decade many more people have started to use the search engines to answer their queries, companies needs to surface resources to provide tangible answers to those queries .A good SEO strategy will require a tight back-end and a front-end that is empowered with relevant consumer-centric-content.
Once the foundation is set for SEO on the back-end, content on the front-end needs to be looked at to strategically optimize the specific search engine results . Time and again people think that the job is over when the back-end is set up, but that is just a mirage- to be smashed when we reach the end of the sand-dune.
Consumer habits have evolved over time, people rely on their social networks and other Web 2.0 inputs for news and information. Hence it would be disastrous for you to miss out on this golden goose or blue bird or whatever ; else you would be picking up the shells people dump after eating omelettes to their fill ; all your life.