Social Media describes a set of techniques that allow companies whether large or small to use platforms like, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc, to proliferate their key company messages.These techniques are also extremely useful for brand awareness and/or brand development, they allow these organisations to engage in customer services via Social Media in many different ways.

Many people still feel that Social Media is about continually selling to perspective clients, but this is not the most effective use of Social Media. Most Social Media experts will testify that being effective in Social Media is more about truly and honestly engaging with your market, and becoming an expert advisor to communities that you have a vested interest in.

Online Internet Marketing Explosion

The following statistics show that techniques that use Social Media and online Marketing are extremely compelling and the trends are definitely exploding upwards.

• US eMarketer online have predicted a growth in corporate Social Media spend from $350m (2006) - 2.1 bn (2010).
• These figures are backed up by the US online entrepreneurial magazine Inc, who say that 91% of businesses are trying to break into Social Media in 2010.
• Adecco UK also predict rapid increases in spend in Social Media advertising.
• Coka Cola and Pepsi have both pulled large advertsing budgets out of Superbowl and ploughed it into Social Media.
• 70% of 18 - 34 Year olds have watched TV on the Web.
• 25% of the US population in the past month said they watch a short video.....on their phone.
• 24 of the top US largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation.
• We no longer search for the news it finds us.
• YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world, over 100 million videos.
• 80% of Twitter activity is done through mobile devices.
• 54% of bloggers post content or tweet daily.

In the future we will no longer search for products, they will find us through Social Media

The Social Media Platform

When Social Media is implemented within an organisation it is highly advantageous to ensure that a high performing suite of software tools as well as well tested techniques are employed. Integrating these tools and techniques ensures that Social Media can be employed even when Social Media managers and company executives are mobile.

It is now possible to be moving around and still continues to be effective as far as engaging with your new Social Media clients, however it is important to understand which Social Media tools are required to make this integration more seamless and effective.

As mobile devices continue to develop in terms of more powerful functionality and popularity, it is important to factor them into the Social Media platform. The Social Media Platform is decsribed as a group of Social Media communication tools (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Youtube, Flickr) as well as a layer that we describe as the Mobile Device layer.

The Social Media Device layer

This describes a layer of software tools that allow good integration between the Social Media communication tool (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace) and a common set of tools that allow messages and communication to pass to all of the key Social Media products.

An example of this might be a video is taken at a product launch and one email could be sent to the Social Media Mobile Layer and then via this layer the video is sent to facebook, a message to Twitter and if its a video that could also be automatically sent to other video search engines.

On our Social Media training courses we look closely at all of the techniques and tools that make up the Social Media hardware and applications, to ensure you key messages can be sent from anywhere at anytime.