Utilizing Your Social Network to Grow Your Business

Traffic acquisition during the past few years has slowly shifted away from purely Search Engine Optimization (SEO, a service that we specialize in) to include Social Media. You’ve heard of the big names: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. Having a website that is optimized for search engines is no longer enough to drive maximum levels of traffic, with social media becoming a growing source of website hits and an excellent way to communicate with customers and potential customers. Although Millennials have grown up using social networks on a daily basis, older web users sometimes have a more difficult time getting used to these applications and this can hurt their online presence.

At Z Global we offer management of social media accounts so that you can spend your limited time focusing on the essentials. These social networks also provide advertisement opportunities to increase traffic to your website, an especially useful tool for eCommerce stores. These tools come with analytical tools so that website owners can evaluate their effectiveness. Not all social networks are the same so we break down the following major players:

• Facebook: considered by some to be the first major social network, this website, started in 2004 by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg, was initially only available to college students. Acknowledging the possibility for large growth they eventually opened the platform to high school students and then ultimately anyone above the age of 13. Currently, with billions of users, Facebook has recently had to innovate in order to keep profits high enough for stockholders. Their strategy has emphasized a shift to mobile platforms (a rapidly growing demographic), and monetization of advertisements. These advertisements provide an opportunity for any business, small or large, to reach out to Facebook users on an international or regionally-targeted scale.
• Twitter: the initial identifying feature of this social network was its limit of posts to 140 characters or less. This limit has remained in place up to today and has helped to spawn abbreviated online language, including the popular hashtag. The hashtag feature became a more serious feature during the Arab Spring when Twitter became an instantaneous news source and allowed internet users to see “what’s trending”, or rather what recent events have garnered the cumulative interest of internet users. Much like Facebook the company eventually ran into monetization issues due to its insistence of not implementing advertisements. Twitter eventually reversed this decision and started allowing companies to advertise… a move that may have annoyed users but was seen by many as necessary to keep the company growing. Starting initially with only text posts, Twitter has grown to allow both image and video posts.
• Google+: perhaps the black sheep of the major social networks, Google+ is a service that has gone through several re-brands and renames (anyone remember Google Buzz?). Although it may not be as flashy as its competitors, its integration with the web’s top search engine, Google, makes it a very necessary tool for any online business. Google’s search engine ranking pages (SERP) have a ranking algorithm with over a hundred variables, several of which are related to Google+. Google+ is especially important for local businesses because Google Maps requires a business to have an account in order to be visible on local Google maps.
• Instagram: perhaps the most recent of the major players, Instagram was founded in 2010 and revolves strictly around the sharing of photos and, more recently, videos. Interestingly enough if one tries to upload a photo using the Instagram desktop website, they will be disappointed as image uploads are only allowed via mobile platforms (ie mobile phones and tablets).  Instagram was recently purchased by Facebook although it has remained quite a bit of autonomy. Where Facebook is the giant, Google+ the nerd, Twitter the trender, Instagram must be their sexy cousin. Major brands have learned to leverage Instagram to control the appearance of their brand and also allow users to upload content related to their brand.