How To Utilize Social Networking Sites For Online Business

onlinebusiness How To Utilize Social Networking Sites For Online Business

As lots of people are using the Internet these days, online business holders should think about the ways to manage their professional image online. An online company should think about utilizing social networking sites. A social networking site is a website where Internet users can gather and share information, increase friendships, and build professional relationship. Here are the reasons why social networking sites can help out an online business.

Online Professional Identity

An online business can build an image or professional identity on various social networks. An online firm should not be scared of non-paying opportunities online through the help of social networking websites. Business profile can be created and shared to the other members of a particular online community.

Information Exchange

Through social networking sites, Internet users can exchange information, opinion and thoughts about certain things. Online businesses and business entrepreneurs can also exchange marketing tips and concepts, and study about the other companies in dissimilar industries. News about companies that are beneath the similar industry as of the online business can also be learned through social networking sites. Through these sites, online companies can search useful resources to help them accomplish a specific goal.

Building Connections

One of the advantages of making use of a social networking site is the chance to make new friends and build helpful relations with persons and businesses. An online business can join an online community, and add contacts to its list. Entrepreneurs can also search for the people who are involved in different industries. The members of a specific social networking website can share information and be in touch with each other about professional or business matters.

An online business will just have to capitalize the full potential of the Internet to promote the company’s image. In addition, business entrepreneurs will be able to build contacts with people who may be their target clients.

social bookmark How To Utilize Social Networking Sites For Online Business

Make the most of Your Twitter

twitter Make the most of Your TwitterTwitter is likely to be one of the only social networking sites to have long time viability.  Twitter usage and name recognition has been rising in leaps and bounds.  A lot of people are using Twitter not just to stay connected, but to market additionally.  So how do you make the most of Your Twitter?

Get an active Twitter account.

Of course this sounds basic, and you may already have one, however don’t just breeze past this section.  We have some exciting tips to help you capitalize on your usage.

For those who are on the way, register your account at http://twitter.com/signup. Once you have finished with your registration, connect with as many people as you can. They make it simple by allowing you to search your email lists.  Customize your profile to show your most important website, or your company’s, bio information. Don’t forget to set your location, update preferences and how you want to be notified of friends who have connected the Twitter revolution.

Draw attention with a customized background.

Get creative at this point. Just click on “Settings” and then “Design” to select a remade background or upload your own picture.  If you have a style for design and a little Photoshop knowledge you can create a background that speaks volumes concerning you and your company.

Gather friends and follow interesting people and organizations

Finding friends on Twitter is simple. Three options are available.

1.      Search Twitter:  Make use of  “Find People” function to search for any person from your next door neighbor to celebrities to companies.
2.      Search other networks:  Connect to any person in your email contact list. Twitter can search through your hotmail.com, Gmail, Yahoo mail or AOL mail contact lists and if your friends use Twitter they can be added to your list.
3.      Manual invites:  Have friends, co-workers or clients who are not on Twitter? Manually input their email addresses and invite them to register.

Monitor your Twitter Rank

Twitter offers the Twitter Grader (http://twitter.grader.com) to show you where you rank against other Twitter members.  Once you enter your user name, you will see where you rank among a possible 100 points.
Twitter Grading is based on overall rank, number of followers, your following and updates.  The more active you are the higher you will rank.

Connect your Twitter account to social bookmarking sites.

If you are in the Twitter game, be in it to win it.  Put up your social networking account by bookmarking your Twitter account to sites such as Digg.com, Propeller.com, Dropjack.com and others.

Take benefit of advanced search features on Twitter

To get the most out of your connection with people in your goaled market, visit: http://search.twitter.com/advanced to utilize the Advanced Search features Twitter offers.  In Advanced Search you can search by keywords or phrases, location, names and more.

Refuse to go along with everyone you see.  Be particular and choose only the best people who really have excellent information to share and are likely to accept your friend request.

twitterlogo Make the most of Your TwitterAs you take these steps to capitalize your Twitter impact, you will see your social rank rise.  As with any exciting activity, the more you keep at it, the more better result.

Happy Twitting.

The 2 “How To” Top 10 Lists for Optimizing Pictures and Videos

Universal search is ushering in results that include videos, images, news, maps, books and websites. Social networking sites, such as Flikr and Facebook, are making it easier to share photos. You Tube has sky rocketed online videos to another level. If your site offers up visuals, then you need to optimize them. Who wants to miss out on the opportunity to rank more and drive additional traffic? To get you started, i have assembled 2 “How To” top 10 lists to help you capitalize on your website’s pictures and videos.

Optimization for Image Search

1. Give the file a name that clearly represents what the image is. This will help communicate what keywords you are optimizing for with the search engines. Ex. Your picture is of a vacation home on the beach. Name it “vacation beach house.” This is a much better option than a filename like IMG 12345.
2. For the image description tag you will want to use a long description. In the world of SEO, it may be referred to as a “long-tail keyword.” Ex. “3 bedroom vacation beach house in New York.”
3. When you “tag” the photo, make sure your tags/keywords match exactly what the product is or image is representing.
4. Apply short descriptions to ALT tags. Ex. “beach house at Jones Beach.”
5. Save your photos as JPG files.
6. Try making the image path as uncomplicated and short as possible. An example of a good path would be www.examplesite.com/vacation-house. An example of a bad path would be www.examplesite.com/pictures/houses/vacation-house.
7. Be sure the file folder that stores your images is not blocked by the robots.txt file.
8. Page content surrounding the image is a must!
9. Do not add “click to see larger image” within the JavaScript link. This limits what the search engines can access and is a common mistake.
10. Experiment by re-uploading the picture. Image freshness is a clue for the search engines and may affect relevancy.

Use a photo sharing site to get your photos out there and exposed. Want to share your pics? Check out these social media sites that are for photo sharing:
Flickr
MySpace
Facebook
Webshots

Optimization for Video

1. Think of the terms users are likely to be searching for.
2. Surround the video with on-page relevant text. Be sure the video and the content on the page go hand in hand.
3. For videos directly on your site, be sure you put them right off of your root folder.
4. Add a video search on your site.
5. Create a video sitemap. You can create a video sitemap here.
6. Be sure to use keywords when “tagging” the video.
7. Use SEO best practices; use keywords in the title for the video and in the filename for the video.
8. Evaluate other pages on your website where content may be relevant to your video. Create a hyperlink from that page to the page where the video is.
9. Create brand awareness and visibility by embedding and imprinting your brand logo into the video.
10. Be sure to have a social book marking tool on the page the video is placed on. This will help facilitate the distribution of the video.

A few other pieces of information to consider:

• Search engines will block videos that load via a popup.
• If applicable, create “how-to” videos. Submit these videos to social media video sites. These types of informative videos are perfect for viral distribution and can be a great luring tactic that will drive traffic into your site.
• Create an informative and entertaining video experience that will leave your users craving more.

Want to get your videos out there? Here is a list of popular video sharing sites for you to distribute your videos to:
YouTube
Yahoo! Video
Liveleak
Google Video

There you have it! Nothing can replace fundamental SEO strategies, but applying these best practices to your images and videos will give you an extra boost.