What Are Social Media Websites?
Overview of this week's e-Newsletter
Have you ever hear about social media site? If not, you might not know that changes are you've run into these types of sites while on the web and had no idea what they were. A social media site is a website that allows users and viewers to interact in a social atmosphere for sharing and discussing information. For example, websites that allow you to post comments about articles or vote and submit your favorite music. With so many of differnet type of these site out there it would be good just to know about for general Internet use but what I really want to talk to you about is how you can benefits by using or implimenting social media into your website.

Some Quick Examples Of Social Media Sites
Examples of social media sites.
A few quick example of social media sites you might have run across are listed below. This list is in no way complete there are probably thousand or even millions of social media type sites out there. These are just list to give you more recognition to what these types of sites are.

YouTube.com - YouTube allows users to submit videos that everyone can see and watch. Thus creating an interactive envirment with the website and it's users. As well some videos that are submited can be commented on - thus making the social aspect much greater.

Facebook.com - An interactive community where you can get your web page for own personal or business use and socially interact with others by adding them to your friends list and posting messages back in forth on your web page.

Wikipedia.com - An open content encyclopedia project where those that know about a subject are encouraged to add information and other can browse to read about various subjects.

Digg.com - A bookmarking site where anyone can signup and submit websites that they think are great and vote on other submited sites. When one votes on Digg.com for a website it's called to "digg" or "dugg" a website. The more people that have dugg a website the more "diggs" it has and the higher it's listed on their website.

Any Blog (web diary) - Any type of blog is social media becuase it allows for users to interact with the one writting posts that go up on this blog by submitting comments. Although some blogs do not allow comments - this is a gray area wheither it would still be considered social media.

How Can These Types Of Sites Help You?
How can social media help your website and business.
There are actually as many ways of using social media to help promote and assist your business as there are social media sites. But what I wanted to cover this week are some basics that you can start applying right now. So for ease I'm going to split social media into 2 categories - social media that you can add into your own website and those social media that have specific websites you uses them from.

In category one we have blogs and forums (message boards). These can both be added to your own website to increase interaction between you and your current customers and potentials that happen to find your website. I've heard lots of success stories of website owners creating a blog and posting messages to find many people very receptive of hearing about what they had to say. Also as a good side effect most blogs and forums help make the a website rank higher in search engines. So putting a blog or forum on your site can be an effective way to boost website visits and leads.

Now the second category we have many many websites that can be used in a social way to increase visitors to your website and get the word out about your business. Some great examples are sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com. Although there is a large number of younger users on these sites there is also an increasing number of businesses creating a web page on them and getting feed back and interaction between real Internet users. Another site is YouTube.com, but creating a video about your company and placing it on YouTube you not only will be posting your video to the audience on that site but since Google includes YouTube videos in it's search results you'll also get placed in Google.

The key with this second category of social media is finding a social media site or two that goes along with your business model and would have your target market already using it. Then read up on how to promote your website using that site. I'd also look over successful sites that have done this. Then start applying what you find.

If you need help implementing any social media blog, forum, or using a specific website like Myspace.com or YouTube.com please conact us and we'd be glad to help.

Final Words
Ending comments
Well I hope that was informative as to what social media is and how you can start using it to help boost your traffic and lead on your site. Again if you have any questions or would like help implimenting social media with your website just send us an email or call (724-355-6445).

And as always, look for next week's newsletter where we hope to provide you with more useful tips and advice. If you have any suggestions about topics you would like to hear more about please send us an email with your thoughts.