It’s 2012, and social media is on every one’s smart phone, laptop, and tablet. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, social media is EVERYWHERE and is not only used for personal accounts. Social media has a list of benefits to help your start-up grow! Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest make it easy for your business to connect with your audience and expose your brand! Here are just a few benefits that social media can help launch for your start-up business:     

Engage with users
Social media is an awesome platform for two-way communication. Two-way communication meaning, an open conversation between you and your audience. This conversation starter helps to build relationships with users, and allows for both parties to have a better understanding for each other. However, since this is a public platform, there are some pros and cons of social media. For example, a pro could be the relationship building and two-way communication. The biggest con of social media is, you can’t control the conversation. Be open to negativity, and expect it! Learn to roll with the punches, deleting or avoiding negative comments is a no-no. It’s all about how you respond, and what you’re doing to make them feel that your company is doing its best.

Brand Exposure
Did you know there are about 900 million Facebook accounts, and 500 Twitter accounts?! These numbers are HUGE! Social media comes in handy to connect with a large audience with such little work.Facebook’s “Pages” account allows you to create your company’s Facebook page! Post what’s happening in the office, that new cool product you’re dying to show off, or post a meme picture to lighten everyone’s mood! Be creative, Facebook pages usually converge Internet traffic to your company website. Linking all of your social networks together isn’t a bad idea, either. The more you converge your websites you’ll increase your SEO, generating even more brand exposure for your start-up!

Creates Transparency
Your social network account should not be a robotic salesperson for your start-up. Yes, bu$ine$$ is GREAT for connecting, networking and marketing. However, no one wants to ‘Like’ a page or follow an account that advertises your business. Be a human! We want to know what’s up, what are your plans, what is your current view of? We like to know these things because social media is all about staying updated. Your audience will have a stronger connection if they feel that your company is really trying to make a difference.

Free Marketing/Advertising
“I don’t want it, it’s free.” – said NO ONE ever. Social media is FREE marketing and advertising for your brand, who wouldn’t want to take advantage of that?! Instead of spending hundreds, if not, thousands on a marketing campaign -implement the free communications tool and start a conversation. Social media pages also have the potential to go viral. Virality is key when it comes to updating content and posts. A viral post increases the exposure of your business. Free online marketing and advertising is the best way to get your name out there!

Increase of Mass-Media Flow
Times have changed as technology becomes more uh… technical. Traditional media, such as news paper ads, newsletters or fliers are slowly but surely becoming outdated. Social networks are whats becoming the next source of news information, so it’s vital to be in touch with all social media.

- Alyssa Villarreal & Janie Elderdice