I’m sure most of you have heard of Twitter by now. It is a social network that helps people connect and keep in touch by sharing information in the form of Tweets, or little bits of information at a time. You are limited to just 140 characters per Tweet to tell people what you’re doing or share some information you’d like them to know about.

Like most social networks, it is used and was created for individuals to connect, but businesses have also jumped on the bandwagon to get information out about their products and services. This is accomplished by posting tweets that contain information that followers will find interesting. In addition, they are able to include links to their websites or blogs in their tweets that can be followed to direct traffic to their sites.

The key to using Twitter to help your business lies in making sure that the information posted in the tweets is interesting and engaging. The goal is to attract followers who will see each and every post they make. If the post is interesting enough, followers will be likely to retweet the message to their followers. This extends the reach of the message greatly.

One advantage to using social media in this fashion is that it provides a source of free advertising. The message reaches a potential audience much larger than could be achieved with local or television advertising and the cost is negligible.

Once a following is built up, the number of people who click through to a business’s website or blog increases exponentially. This gives the advantage that these people are already interested in what the business has to offer, making them that much more likely to purchase whatever product or service is being offered. This makes the ROI for using Twitter go very high when compared with other forms of advertising.

All forms of social media hold the potential for high returns on investment. Twitter is just one of many sites that exist with this potential. Its advantage over the others is that it has one of the widest reaches and takes the least amount of time to generate content. Due to the limit on the number of characters one can use, they have to keep their messages short and succinct. They must catch the attention of potential customers quickly and convince them to follow up by clicking on the link in the post.

Of course, there is one mistake that many businesses make that causes their attempts at using Twitter, or any other social media, as a means of advertising to fail miserably. That mistake is making overt attempts at selling. People are looking for interesting content, not advertising, when they use sites of this type. One can slip in a short sales pitch occasionally, but effort must be made to provide something of value to readers in addition.

Using Twitter to help your business can be one of the best ways to advertise on the internet. However, one must remember that this site was not created to provide free ad space. That is simply a side effect that can be made use of by smart businesses.

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Social Media is a way for people to share information from numerous sources. One of the real advantages to using social media to disseminate information, is it is shared in real time, meaning that when you share it, people can read it immediately. Social media sites facilitate this by giving users the platform to share information and connect with many people. Users can share this information through posts, articles, news stories, videos and more.

FaceBook is another such site. Here, users can create online profiles, upload photos, and share information with friends all around the world. Users can even make friends with people located all the way around the world and share information with them through their friend pages.

Twitter is also considered a social media site. On this site, users are asked the question, “What are you doing right now?” They may answer in any fashion they wish, though responses are limited to only 140 characters, including spaces. Other individuals may choose follow a person on Twitter and be able to view any of that person’s posts, called “Tweets.”

Flickr is a social site that allows individuals to upload photos and share them with other users.

In addition to the examples mentioned, the internet contains thousands of forums where people with similar hobbies, jobs, tastes, and other traits can visit and post discussions of these interests. Other users have the option of making a direct reply or posting a comment on the post and sharing this other readers as well.

Users also have the option of creating Blogs, user generated sites where an individual can compose and write his/her own content about any subject. The content of these entries immediately becomes searchable on the internet and can be viewed by anyone with access and an interest in the topic of the content.

Social media sites were created for the use of individual users who wished to share information. More and more businesses are finding that these sites are useful tools for them to use in raising product awareness. They can use these sites to generate trust in their opinions and expertise. However, directly trying to push a person to buy a particular item does not work on these sites and could get a business banned from access. Consumers are usually repelled by such overt advertising techniques.

The most important thing one needs to know about social media sites is that 100 percent of the content is generated by users of the site. This content is fluid in that it can be edited or changed at any time by anyone. These sites allow individuals to reach a worldwide audience and to interact with others located anywhere in the world, often in real time conversations.

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Different social media sites have different uses, strengths, and advantages. Twitter could be called a ‘real time social networking’ site, a place for sharing information as it happens, and for connecting with others in real time, often resulting in lasting friendships and contacts.

Learning how to use this fun, free, and useful tool can be a bit intimidating for the beginner, but don’t be put off – with a little effort and a lot of intuitive “feeling your way through”, you’ll soon be able to use Twitter well–and you might even become ‘digitally’ famous!

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The big buzz on the Internet is all about social media, especially with the social media giant Facebook and now Google entering the field with Google Plus. So what exactly is social media?

The best way to understand social media is to understand the difference between social media and industrial media. Industrial media consists of elements such as television, magazines and newspapers, books, and internet websites that have fixed content that does not change. These forms of media are considered to be permanent because once they are produced, it becomes impossible to change them. Here is one of the main things that set social media apart. Social media can be edited and changed by the very people who use it.

Industrial media are generally produced from a single centralized location and disseminated in an ever expanding circle. Social media is produced in many different locations and collected into centralized points where it can be accessed by anyone with access to the internet. It usually requires some specialized skills and training to be able to produce industrial media. This typically requires the combined efforts of several individuals, each with their own unique skill set that contributes to the whole.

Social media, on the other hand, is created by virtually anyone and does not require any particularly specialized skills. Anyone who wishes to create content may do so with the skills and tools at their disposal with only minor, if any, modifications.

Perhaps the largest, and most important, difference between the two types of media is the immediacy of social media. Industrial media is produced and disseminated with a lag of hours, weeks, months, or even years between the beginning of production and it reaching the public. Social media, on the other hand, is produced and disseminated into the reach of the public immediately. As soon as the content is generated, it is available to anyone interested in receiving it.

Through the creation of several different social media sites on the internet, it has become possible for users to create their own social networks that can be separated by thousands of miles while being able to converse in real time. Individuals can publish information for those in their network to see or hear and receive feedback immediately through comments and other communication.

Many businesses try to use social media to attract new customers. One problem they face is that people in social networks are usually repulsed by overt advertising. It, therefore, becomes the job of these businesses to establish themselves as experts in their field by producing content that is useful and interesting to users. They must raise awareness of themselves and their products without using any sort of sales pitch to get their message across.

Social media has introduced a whole new way for people to interact over great distances. It has become the preferred source for information and entertainment in many different ways.

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