Social media is revolutionizing the internet and it's also starting to be a major player in the entrepreneurship field. There are semi-niche and mega-popular products that range from Twitter, Digg, to Facebook. Each one of these can be absolutely crucial for growing a young business and also getting word out the potential investors.
Many people may not even be familiar with Twitter but it has millions in funding so something must be up…
What is Social Media?
This article tries to explain what exactly social media is. Here are some highlights:
“The biggest problem I have with the term “social media” is that it isn’t media in the traditional sense. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the others I don’t have the word count to mention aren’t media; they are platforms for interaction and networking. All the traditional media — print, broadcast, search, and so on — provide platforms for delivery of ads near and around relevant content. Social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, not content and ads.”
The article then goes on to discuss what is media….
This means the newspaper, the television, and the radio when you’re talking about Old Media. Moving forward into New Media, it starts with blogs and podcasts and authorship-centric tools like Twitter, YouTube and the other variants of online video and microblogging distribution.
Finally in conclusion, advice for practical use of social media:
If you’re a marketer or entrepreneur, it’s important (I think) to approach aggregating and monetizing social media with at least a little bit of appreciation for its roots and culture. Whether it’s the incidental tweet or a masterpiece uploaded to Flickr, a little bit of the user’s soul and identity goes into creating that content.
Social media is a phenomenon (proven by articles about social media changing history) and it's something that hasn't been seen before. This means there are numerous possibilities of ways to monetize the social media realm. And even if monetizing directly from it isn't your thing, it's still worth it to use it as a very valuable marketing tool.
How Can Twitter Help My Start Up?
- Drive Traffic
- Build a brand
- Connect with customers
- Relate to customers
Adaptation
Social media is adapted by a broad range of targets, but not an all inclusive range. For example this article cites that big media isn't too hot for social media. Basically most big companies have made a sort of half way effort to create social media products just because its the thing to do. There are some sites that mesh well with Facebook but it seems much more important FOR STARTUPS to integrate social media into their marketing plans than for established companies. This is something to keep in mind when creating your marketing strategy.