The Blog on Branding

New Trends in Social Media Distribution

The concept of social media distribution (SMD) might have been around for a while, but it has been really taking a turn since the release of Web 2.0 applications. Web 2.0, the next generation of Web development, allows for more information sharing and collaboration on the Internet. In addition, Web 2.0 has facilitated social networking communities, blogs, Web applications, and much more.

“…giving you a much broader reach to the community.”

Want to discover more about Social Media Distribution?

• Connect your content to existing social networks
• Distribute content through advertising networks
• Build relationships with consumers

Connect your content to existing social networks

One of the most recent trends in SMD is to join existing communities to reach your target market. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are among the largest networks, but there are still more on the Web that could help you reach your audience.

The advantage of joining these existing communities is that these networks have tools that give the user instantaneous authentication, in other words, the ability to:

• Make comments
• Play games
• Vote on polls
• Participate in contests

All of the interactions the users have with your site are broadcast to all the other users in their network giving you a much broader reach to the community.

Distribute content through advertising networks

Instead of creating a static banner ad and calling it a day, distribute your company story or information that you know your audience would appreciate through the advertising network. Make the same ad buy, but replace the JPGs with content widgets fed by RSS feeds. Once you’ve done that, you now have the power to constantly update the content and make it relevant to the hosted sites, and therefore relevant to the audience, thus increasing your industry voice and click-through.

Another trend is to get rid of the old JPEG banner. This is because most people don’t pay any attention to these pop ups, and they don’t receive much click-through traffic.

The idea is: instead of going with the static banner, distribute your company’s story or information through the ever-growing, constantly changing advertising network. Use the versatility of Web 2.0 to your advantage and buy the same ad spots, but replace the typical static banner with content widgets fed by RSS feeds to constantly update your audience with relevant information.

By doing this you will be able to increase your click-through traffic.

Build relationships with consumers

You want to begin building relationships with you audience.

In about all of the Web 2.0 applications and communities, users have to sign up and register only once. Latching on to these existing communities will allow you to build a relationship with their users.

Contests

One way to build this relationship is via a contest. Before Web 2.0, an online contest was a one-time exchange with the user. The user would give you his/her contact information in exchange for a chance to win a prize. Instead of creating a two-way relationship, the customer’s email would be flooded with offers even after that one contest entry.

Social networks allow for you to birth ongoing relationships with your audience instead of this one-time information exchange. For your next contest, instead of requiring from users their contact information as a qualification for the contest, request that they join your social network. When people sign up for a social network, all of their activity is announced to people within their network, giving you more exposure than before to your audience.

Facebook

Facebook Connect is a great way to reach your target audience. Facebook’s API (application programming interface) gains you access to a users identity, friends, and distribution at all of the integration points within Facebook, such as profile boxes, profile tabs, and even notifications. Facebook wants you to use these APIs so users can share your content and the actions the users take on your site with all of their Facebook friends.

With all of the information from the user and their friends, you will be able to help build a more personable relationship with the user.

Facebook also has a page called Social Media for Small Business. This page is a guide to help growing businesses effectively use Facebook’s tools to better serve their customers. It consists of information on how to start a blog, tap into Twitter, harness the power of Facebook, share photos and videos, and even how to measure your success online. The page consists of 8 guides and discussion boards that can help you tap into the social media market.

Google

Google Friend Connect is another means to reach your audience via social media.

According to Google, “Google Friend Connect instantly awakens and strengthens the community that visits your site by enriching it with social features.”

Google Friend Connect allows you to build your own community, and by using other services, such as Yahoo, Twitter, AOL, Plaxo, allows you to strengthen you community and turn visitors into potential members. With Google Friend Connect there is no programming required. All you have to do is copy and paste snippets of code onto your site and Friend Connect does the rest.

“…guaranteed ways to target your social media audience.”

Social media distribution should be used as another channel to expose your content across the Internet. The old days of pop-up ads and banners are slowly fading away and ways of reaching the consumer are changing.

Connecting your content to existing social networks, distributing your content through advertising networks, and building relationships with consumers are guaranteed ways to target your social media audience.

By Steve Glass