WebProNews

Social media is being used by small businesses to help build their brand and attract loyal customers while on a modest budget. The SES session "Small Voices, Big Impact: Social Media for the Little Guy" focused on ways smaller companies can improve business and increase sales.

Stay tuned to WebProNews and the WebProNews Video Blog for continued coverage of the Search Engine Strategies New York event.

Jennifer Laycock

 Jennifer Evans Laycock, Director of Social Media, SiteLogic said social media is the bleeding edge of marketing.

"There are a million clones out there, there is always the next big thing. When you are creating your marketing plan it's important that you don't get caught up in chasing the next big thing," said Laycock.

Focus on established areas of social media and don't worry about being out there in front.

Laycock likes Flickr because images as a communication media are very powerful. The people coming together in Flickr are a more engaged audience. There are hundreds of members in discussion groups about thousand of topics. Tying your Flickr community to a blog post via a compelling visual representation about your product or site, you have a highly targeted and engaged user base on Flickr that you can leverage.

She likes Twitter because it's a really low barrier of entry to join and leverage the network. It's very simple to get started and news spreads fast.

Laycock said the great thing about YouTube is how many people use it and how many people search on it. YouTube is second only to Google in terms of search query volume. She likes YouTube because you can tag videos, use related videos, overlay ads, and run ads alongside your video. There are lots of ways to get your message in front of a large audience.

LinkedIn is good because you can leverage your network with questions and problems. "Let's say you are looking for contacts at company x. You can look up people from company x, see how connected you are to those people, then call the people you know that know them and try to arrange an introduction," said Laycock.

Christina Kerley, Marketing Specialist, ckEpiphany, talked about how social media has changed. "Mostly what's changed is how much more we rely on social media to look into products before a purchase," said Kerley. Consumers look for other consumer's opinions of products at a higher rate than ever and it is only growing. 
 

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