Corporate Alumni Network - Social Media Strategy | Corporate Social Networking

The Social Media Era - Coordinate Your Campaign

A significant benefit of social media is that it levels the playing field for everyone and makes it possible for businesses of any size to interact and engage with their clients and prospects in a highly personalized and genuine manner. Social media, however, remains about people. You have to devote time to developing effective communications and ensure you are communicating with the appropriate target market/s.

Are you committed to a specific platform? Are you committing enough time to get something out of the social media channels where you place your business message? Use social media to build your brand and reach out to both potential clients and potential employees. Especially with the younger generation, we need to consider that social media is a language of choice and one that we can embrace and benefit from.

If you are on auto-pilot, consider contacting us today. Put AWS to work for you.

AWS services include providing corporate social media policies, strengthening your LinkedIn company and employee profiles, growing your followers and considering whether to incorporate blogs, Twitter, Google+ or other social media into your strategy. Working together, you can use these marketing opportunities to drive traffic to your website, build your brand and maximise your marketing dollars.

Partner with AWS for results

AWS works with companies to ensure your marketing and communications plan utilizes the many opportunities social media present. Social media successfully positions B2B and B2C Companies when properly implemented. AWS partners with companies to ensure you have a program in place to manage this opportunity effectively.

Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile For Improved Search Results

Your LinkedIn profile is an essential element in providing information to others about yourself - and that ability to describe yourself and your skills sets LinkedIn apart from other sites. Most would consider it a vital social media platform for people to look for jobs, for qualified talent to fill jobs and for networking. So to maximize LinkedIn networking, you should take advantage of the opportunities it provides and optimize your profile to increase the possibility of being found by a prior colleague, by a recruiter searching for talent or to increase your brand exposure.

1. Customize your website links and blog links

LinkedIn provides three website links in your profile. These links give you the opportunity to have visitors to your LinkedIn profile see the types of sites with which you are associated. You can identify those links that help show your knowledge and build your brand. Some of the sites you can choose to link to here are your company website, your personal blog or your social media profile.

However, it is best to change the default setting that describe the link. For instance, change the default "Company Website" description to "Quality Accounting Firm in Austin" or wording similar that provides a keyword rich description. When someone is looking for an Austin accounting firm in a search, you may just be found. Let's say you just have one website. That ok, since you can link to that site three times, but change the description for each link. The second description may say "Austin CPA" and the third could be "Accounting Solutions-Texas".

Here is how you go about changing that website description:

1. Click on “Edit Profile”, then find the “Edit” adjacent to the Website name.

2. On the next page after it opens, select “Other” from the drop-down list.

3. Insert in the name you have chosen with the appropriate keywords.

4. Type in the URL link to your website, blog or social media platform or the same link on the far right side.

5. Continue in the same manner for the other two site links.

6. Be sure to "Save Changes" to complete the process. Remember that you have a limit of 30 characters that you can use in these field, so choose your keywords wisely.

Social media should form a part of your overall marketing and communications strategy

Do you know what companies find when they search your business name? It helps to be aware of your target audience; an end to which social media is integral.

The most influential social media channel will differ from business to business but for B2B companies, LinkedIn is likely one of the most influential. If your business is more of a B2C company and relies heavily on brand promotion, building a large network on Facebook or Twitter may be key.

Effective keyword usage in your social media strategy is also important to consider. Highlight keywords relevant to your business on social media platforms to enable others to find you and use keywords and questions to generate discussions. There are many keyword research resources out there and this should form part of any social media strategy. A common mistake frequently made when performing keyword research includes competing and optimizing for one or two generic words; these have high levels of competition and it is often worth targeting keywords that are more specific.

Social Media And SEO - Why Bother?

Social media is now an integral part of business; indeed firms outsource such work to manage this aspect of their company. Its influence on modern society? Inescapable. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, MySpace, Blogs and countless other media are growing in momentum and their quest for the global domination of cyberspace. In conjunction with the powerhouse that is social media is SEO; experts are delving into the search engine algorithm to decipher how to work with it, for it and occasionally against it.

Enter AWS. As a company with over a decade of experience working with our clients, we have added social media to our suite of services. From company policies to creating and managing the social media presence, AWS plays a key role with our clients. If you have an interest or recognize the opportunity, but are short on time, we can help with the following.

Backlinks, keywords, link distance, images, canonicals, cloaking, do’s, don’ts and controversy all make up components of SEO. Similarly, followers, friends, likes, hashtags, notifications, connections, discussions and disputes all contribute to the world of social media. So why are they both so necessary?

Rather obviously, with regards to SEO you can publish the most wonderful, elaborate website in existence; if no one knows about it…#epicfail. Absorbing the true and complete benefits of SEO is too great an ask of a beginners blog such as this, however I don’t believe many would argue that with a myriad of businesses and websites out there, there is a definite need for effective SEO. The generation of leads, brand management, promotion, and increase in accessibility to services are all immediate benefits good SEO can bring to your business. Something to ignore? Not anymore.

Similarly, an obvious example to demonstrate a benefit of social media is shown perfectly through Twitter. Sharing knowledge and information across networks, fulfils perhaps the most integral social media purpose - something businesses can no longer afford to ignore. Information is no longer sacred and very rarely private. To effectively maximise information sharing for business needs therefore, social media mediums now provide the perfect route through which SEO can deliver.

I’ve also had discussions that social media is not easily quantifiable and so not as important; how do you effectively track the impact of a campaign and explore its tangible benefits? Is it possible to attribute a retail sale to a Facebook like or a Twitter retweet? There are reports Facebook is working hard on integration into eCommerce and other industries, also evidence that LinkedIn is working to a similar effect via website integration tools aimed at improving their tracking capabilities. These two initiatives point to another benefit of social media; networking. Having arguably changed the face of networking forever, the worth of social media should now be beyond question.