Social Networking

There are many ways to incorporate social networking in ones business.  One way can simply be by interacting with ones costumer base. For example, a couple years ago I worked by myself going business to business asking them about growing their social media presence. Many if not most had the same response, "what is that?" "why would I need to do that." My response was always this, "I'll give you one month free to prove myself and its value." 9/10 times, the business said they had nothing to loose and brought me on board as a consultant. Within that month, I used the site to post special contests daily, post many pictures of the products that were sold and specialized, and most importantly, interact with costumers. I would always comment on their posts, write to them, and start a relationship with the group itself. Within that month I was able to establish a bong between the costumers and business which never existed before thanks to social media. One can see the advantages listed in a recent article by Marguerite Reardon, where she speaks about how AT&T used Twitter as a means of communication with their costumers during a recent outage. Specifically, Reardon writes that "hundreds of messages were sent back and forth on Twitter throughout the day among angry customers looking for more information on what has been happening." At&T is not the first company to do this. I am currently employed by a family owned travel agency and American Airlines system was down and cancelled every flight. We had hundreds of passengers abandoned at the airport and the only way to communicate with them at the time was through Twitter. Through these means, I was able to stay in touch and get real time updates directly from the representatives at the airline rather than sitting around waiting and not having an answer for my costumers.