types of social presence, it’s helpful to simplify the options to manage

Types of social presence, it’s helpful to simplify the options to manage

As a traditional broadcast medium for example companies can use Facebook or Twitter to send messages to customers or partners who have opted in.

However, to take advantage of the benefits of social media it is important to start and participate in customer conversations. These can be related to products, promotions or customer service and are aimed at learning more about customers and providing support, thus improving the way a company is perceived.

The growth of social networks has been documented by Boyd and Ellison (2007), who describe social networking sites (SNS) as Web-based services that allow individuals to:

(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, 

(2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection.

(3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

The interactive capabilities to post comments or other content and rate content are surprisingly missing from this definition.

Different types of social media marketing tools

There are many, many sites and tools which comprise what we call ‘social media. To gain an idea of just how many, complete  which lists many tools in 25 categories. A social media site is much more than simply a website. From a technology viewpoint, most of these sites can be considered as software applications or web services which give access to users at different levels of permission and then enable management and storage of different forms of user-generated content. Messaging is also an important feature.

social media is neither a perfect substitute for traditional marketing, nor is it a one size fits all. Marketers can effectively use social media by taking their message directly to consumers and focussing on traditional objectives.

Since there are so many types of social presence, it’s helpful to simplify the options to manage your can see there’s more to social media than social networks

1 Social networks. The core social platforms in most countries where people interact through social networks are Facebook for consumer audiences, LinkedIn for business audiences, Google+ and Twitter for both.

2 Social publishing and news. Nearly all newspapers and magazines, whether broad or niche, now have an online presence with the option to participate through comments on articles, blogs or communities.

3 Social commenting in blogs. A company blog can form the hub of your social media strategy and you can look at tapping into others’ blogs, whether company or personal or through blog outreach.

4 Social niche communities. These are communities and forums independent of the main networks, although these do support sub groups. You can create your own community this way.

5 Social customer service. Sites like GetSatisfaction, as well as companies’ own customer support forums, are increasingly important for responding to customer complaints.

6 Social knowledge. These are reference social networks like Yahoo! Answers, Quora and similar, plus Wikipedia. They show how any businesses can engage their audiences by solving their problems and subtly showing how their products have helped others.

7 Social bookmarking. The bookmarking sites like Delicious (www.delicious.com), which are relatively unimportant in the UK except if you are engaging technical audiences.

8 Social streaming. Rich and streaming media social sites – photos, video and podcasting.

9 Social search. Search engines are becoming more social with the ability to tag, comment on results and, most recently, vote for them through Google+1.

10 Social commerce. We’ve left this one until last, because it’s mainly relevant for the retail sector. It involves reviews and ratings on products and sharing of coupons about details.