The million dollar question is how can I make money off Social Media?

Try and Imagine each social media website like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube is like going to a party.   What do you do at a party?  You socialise right?  Trying to sell something to a person you have just met at party is not gong to get you anyway.  You talk about your personal life, friends, family and general interests.  Right?

Now imagine your house as your website or blog where you store all of your ideas, thoughts, videos, photos, news clippings etc.  When you enter someone’s house for the first time you often get a good representation of who they are and what they like by the items of interest that hang on their walls. (i.e. design of their website)

When you start to make friends at these parties you attend you will most probably invite them back to your house for a meal.  This is generally the best time for people to understand a little more about what you do in your business.   After you tell them that you own a beauty spa or cosmetic clinic they may or may not show any interest.  However just because someone has no interest in what you do, does not mean they don’t like you as an individual.

Lets say you have a cosmetic clinic and you specialise in fat removal.  You meet Bob at one of the parties.  You invite Bob and other friends to have dinner at your house.  Although you know that Bob does not need fat removal, something extraordinary happens?  Bob goes to another party the following week and meets someone that is interested in having a fat removal procedure?   So you can see what happens next.  Bob tells his friend about how great your house is and that you are a trustworthy person to deal with.

The main point of this is story is consumers don’t like to be sold to on websites that were designed for socialising.  But what it does show, is people like Bob that go to an actual party may know 20-30 people, but when they are socialising on Face Book, twitter and You Tube they generally know hundreds and thousands of individuals who are happy to spread the good word and tell others about your great products and services.

Social media is not a short-term gain but is a very powerful tool for generating business and strengthening your relationships with existing clients. If you remember to use social media as a medium for meeting people, developing relationships and building trust. You will find that people will want to be invited for dinner at your house every night, where they will become your loyal customers.

Social media is a very powerful tool in drawing consumers into your website, but without the right content on your website
you will still struggle to turn that traffic into real customers. What some business owners have not understood is that the consumers have become moreintelligent and much more demanding in terms of what they want from a service provider. You need to find web tools that create interest, excitement and make consumers feel that they are in charge of their own decision when visiting your website. There are two social media tools that have proven to be very successful: blogs and videos.

Contact us today if you want a free consultation on the best options for your business regarding social media marketing, video content and blogging.

Source: Cosmetic News Magazine written by Director of Handi Productions, Stephen Handisides

Blogs allow millions of people to easily publish their ideas, and millions
more to comment on them. Positive comments from consumers can give
your website greater credibility while increasing your visibility on the web.
Blogging offers an easy, free way to get content out quickly and is a good
tool to power a news section. I would strongly encourage all businesses,
small or large, to have some form of news blog that is updated regularly
with fresh content. Your potential consumers are seeking businesses
online that offer this type of content as illustrated by a report run by Vivid
marketing elements that showed 173 million blogs were made in 2008 and
already 2.3 billion blogs have been made in 2009.
Consumers who read blogs are:

• 11% more likely to earn more than $75,000 a year
• Spend more money online
• Spend twice as much time online
• 30% more likely to buy online

These statistics really show the benefits of having a blog to attract
potential buyers and to help with your SEO on your website as search
engines love fresh content! If you can’t get one of your staff to maintain it,
then there are a number of companies that can help you with this.

Statistics show that 18.3 million households in the UK (70%) have internet
access and that 63% of these households have a broadband connection
(up from 56% in 2008), which means internet, speeds are getting faster
and people are able to watch richer content such as video with little
download time. It is no surprise that 15 billion online videos are watched every
month with 52% of all global web traffic being video based.

So how can online video help your business?  Video content can create real
interest and appeal when someone visits your website for the first time.
Statistics show that users will spend an average of 75% longer on your
website if you have video. Consumers will also return to your website on
a regular basis which can often lead to cross selling opportunities and
increased customer loyalty.

Consumers can often understand you and your business better and
more effectively when they can meet the business owner, a customer, see

the clinic or business surroundings, listen to customer testimonials and be

better educated about your service offering. Statistics have shown that you will
have an 85% greater chance of converting consumers into customers
when using video. More than 57% of viewers will naturally link to your
website and tell a friend if the video material has good content.

The other great thing about video is search engines such as Google
rank videos very highly when consumers are searching on the internet.
Social video websites such as YouTube and hundreds of others allow you
to market your business outside your own website to thousands of new
potential consumers. Its time to get started don’t you think?