social media faqs What do you know about using Twitter, Facebook and other social networks for business and as part of a marketing plan? Aztek has experience implementing social media tools, such as Twitter and Facebook, into a business's marketing plan and can help you determine which tools are right for your unique business. And guess what? We may tell you that Twitter and Facebook may not be the best fit for your company! See our blog post about using Twitter for business. What exactly is "social media marketing" and why do I need to know? Social media marketing is a term that describes the use of social media tools such as social networks, blogs, wikis, online communities, blogs, wikis, etc. as part of a company's marketing plan, sales tactics, public relations and customer service. It is important for you to understand these tools so you can assess if these tools could be beneficial to your company and how to correctly implement them. What is the difference between SMM (Social Media Marketing) and SMO (Social Media Optimization)? Social Media Optimization involves creating the right type of content and building a site that is easy to share on social networks and is friendly to social media users. Social Media Marketing goes a step further in terms of actually promoting the content on these networks and spreading the word about your content. Can I submit my own content to social media sites? This will depend on the social network and what is generally accepted/expected by the community's avid users. Digg users for example are known for not appreciating people that submit their own content. The purpose of these sites is to share great, valuable content. This sharing is better if it is submitted and shared by outside users who value the content not by the actual creator of the content that is trying to get extra traffic to their site. How can I build links using social media? There are a couple of ways to build links using social media. You can gain inbound links from social media sites themselves when someone submits your content to the site. However, some of these sites use Nofollow tags on these links in order to limit the number of spam submissions. The second way to use social media in your link building efforts is more effective. This includes developing excellent content that creates buzz and encourages bloggers & other website owners to link to you. Social media sites act as a platform for increased exposure that could possibly lead to more inbound links. Why is social media worth my time? If your one and only intent is to sell/push your products and make more sales, the use of social media may not be worth your time. However, social media may be worth your time if exposure, name recognition and brand building is important to your overall marketing plan. Social media is not expensive to use and in some cases can lead to added benefits including increased search traffic through link building and gaining new subscribers and loyal visitors. Should I be using one of the larger social media sites or focus on more niche social networks? This all depends on your specific company and social media goals. More general social media sites cover of types of different topics. On the other hand, more focused/niche social media sites showcase very specific types of content. Because of this, niche social media sites can result in driving highly targeted traffic to your site. This audience may be smaller than on major social sites but are likely to be highly interested in your content.