Social Networking Isn’t A Waste of Time

Everyday I mention to people that I use social networking within work everyday, which instantly creates the impression that I spend hours sitting around on Facebook, Twitter, etc. It’s no surprise people assume this, not everyone understands that social networking is used by companies everyday to help promote products. This is why I am creating this post today, to explain to you why social networking isn’t a waste of time and can in fact give your product the boost it needs to be up there with the best of your industry.

So what is social networking? It was just the other day I was debating with a workmate whether social media marketing and social networking are the same; it’s a difficult one. The media are forever portraying both social media and social networking in the same category, but I myself think there’s a difference which separates the two.

1. Social media allows Internet users to view, post, comment, rate and forward items such as text, images, videos and music, which is then discovered by others through websites like Digg, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. there are many websites that support all types of media.
2. Social networking allows people to keep up to date with other contacts at a daily basis through websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc. This allows them to send pm’s to each other, update their status’s, post media and more.

So some of you may still be sat there scratching your head wondering what the difference is still, let me explain. They both do sound similar, but the point of introducing social networking to your company is to allow you to communicate with other members of the public. By being able to communicate freely with as many people as possible you are able to spread your product much faster than you would through adverts, and most of all it is free.

So why isn’t social networking a waste of time then? Surely its just someone sat around posting relevant information about the industry every day? That may be the case, but it takes time and effort to get a social networking campaign to work in your favour. Not only is it free but it is also able to be embedded in your Internet marketing (if your company has Internet marketing of course.) You must get the public’s trust before anyone will be convinced to trust anything you say, this will take a long time through posting messages to individuals, interacting with groups of people, because there’s no way anyone will look into your product if they think your just another fool wasting peoples time, unless of course they are gullible enough.

So if you ever tell anyone your looking into social networking, expect people to give you the odd look, they may not understand that even the biggest of companies are now doing it, it’s just another day in the office.