What is Social Media and How Can it Be Used to Build Business?

When I was younger, there was no such word as “social media”. The highest form of socializing was dancing with a pretty girl at the prom; hanging out at the local diner; going to the movies with friends – basically, anything that had to do with physical contact.

There is really no standard definition of “social media”. Since media is simply an instrument of communication, then social media can be defined as a tool for social communication.

A social media website is not only a site where you can visit in order to get information, it also offers you the opportunity of interacting with other users when you get or give information.

The major difference between social media and regular media (i.e. radio, television, newspapers, and magazines) is that you have the opportunity to give your thoughts on shared information and other matters.

Types of Social Media

Since social media is a rather broad term, many websites fall under social media; this is because one is able to successfully interact with the site and communicate with other users.

Here are a few examples of social media sites:

• Wikis – People interact by including articles and re-editing existing articles (i.e. Wikia, Wikipedia)
• Social Networking – People interact by adding new friends, joining groups, commenting on profiles and having discussions (i.e.    Facebook, MySpace, Twitter)
• Social Bookmarking – People interact by tagging sites and looking through the sites bookmarked by other users (i.e. Blinklist, Del.icio.us)
• Social Video and Photo Sharing – People interact by sharing videos or photos and making comments on other user submissions (i.e. Flickr, YouTube).

As a business owner, you can take advantage of social media to promote your products and or services.

This is the part where I tell you that you need outsourced employees who have the techniques, expertise and experience to help you take advantage of social media for your business success. Your outsourced employee will know precisely how to take advantage of social media in order to help you grow your business.

You may say, “Why on earth do I need to hire someone to do this simple task when I can do it myself?” There is no doubt that you are smart enough to do this task yourself, but would you not rather invest the time it would take you to do this “simple” task into drumming up more business for your company or work on producing more money-making products?

Time is money, and it would be a big shame if you wasted valuable time on performing tasks that would take up all your time instead of focusing your time on increasing your company’s bottom line.

Daven Michaels is an award-winning outsourcer and author of the book, ‘Outsource This!’ Daven has been honored more than any other individual or outsourcing organization. You can get more information on outsourcing by visiting www.123Employee.com