Engage Your Customers Through Social Media- Click here http://bit.ly/ohj3Ph for full article

Engage Your Customers Through Social Media- Click here http://bit.ly/ohj3Ph for full article

Social media is the wave of the internet future. Facebook has more than 750 million users. Through the use of Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and others you can tell where almost any person is at any given time. Everything on the internet has become social. With one click of a button you can share your favorite article with your hundreds of Facebook friends, post to any number of the hundreds of social bookmarking sites and post it on your own blog.

Businesses need to keep this in mind to succeed today. Customers are looking online to find a business’s address, checking the appropriate Facebook page to print off the daily deals and doing all their shopping online.

In order to succeed, businesses, whether an online business or a brick and mortar business that has an online presence, need to engage their customers through social media. This can mean any number of things.

First of all, every business needs to have a website and a Facebook profile page that is updated consistently. Twitter pages and Google Local pages allow customers to easily find and keep track of your business.

One very effective way of attracting and keeping new customers is through a social media event. This can be anything from a live chat with the business owner to a contest to a webinar. There are any number of social media events that you can use to get customers excited about your products or services and willing to share them with their friends. The power of social media is that everything can be shared with a lot of people very quickly.

So, to make this practical, first pick what kind of event you want to have. What fits best with your business model? What would be most popular with your target audience?

Then pick a date at least several weeks in advance. Make sure people have plenty of time to find out about and plan for your contest, live conference, webinar or whatever event you choose.

Make sure you have something valuable to offer that people will get excited about. Nothing kills a social media event faster than offering a Yankees memorabilia giveaway in Boston.

Plan your event and make sure it is something that you are proud to have your business name associated with. People are giving up their time. Make sure it is worth it to them.

Lastly, make sure that people who weren’t able to attend your webinar or didn’t find out about the contest in time still have a chance to be involved.

Every business can use social media to attract new customers and engage their current client base. Businesses that don’t take advantage of social media are missing out on potential customers, profit and branding.