Social Media Networking has changed the way people gather information, make decisions and share their information and experiences with others online.

Social Media are the places providing the social interaction we make on websites like:

• Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Forums, Blogs
• Qype reviews, Google+ ...

In fact, this form of communication has been around for a long time in the form of discussion boards and guestbooks. It has simply been popularised by more interactive user interfaces and advancements in technology.

Most people are interacting to some degree on social Media and it is becoming part of our daily life. People are also using it to validate products or services, get impartial reviews, see how companies deal with customers; all before making that purchase. It's time to integrate this into your business. Two Fat Fingers can help by providing the marketing tools and training to get your company up and running on this powerful medium.

How companies interact with and deal with Social Media is a critical part of their future and like everything, the correct mindset is the best place to start. This is the start of Social Business.

Two Fat Fingers provides Social Media training to help companies get the most our of Social Media, from the training of staff in the use of the different services to helping the company integrate Social Media into their ethos.

Have a look at this very interesting video showing the extent of social media penetration:

Intergration with the company and online presence:

A company's social media presence should not be separate from the main website. The ethos and brand identity should carry across all the online sites and interlink to allow users to access the company information when they want, how they want.

For Social Media to really start working for a company, the company should embrace it and make it part of daily business. It's how a company will be found, recommended and therefore gain new business.

Here's a typical scenario of Social Media Integration, where the integration of the online and offline experiences is beneficial for both the user and the company:

This morning, Joe, a potential customer, accesses your website to find out more about a product or service you offer. He finds the product but has not used your company before and is unsure.
Later that morning Joe decides to see if there is any user feedback on your product and decides to look at your Facebook page. User feedback is deemed as impartial validation and is more trustworthy than anything a company can say about its product/service, i.e. advertising.

As a result of the feedback Joe found, he buys the product and then Tweets about the whole experience on the way home.

An employee in your company Tweets back, thanking Joe for his feedback. This further improves the customer experience as is seen as interactive after sales service.

The data about the product, the social media used and the feedback status is all logged in the company's CMS, and available to help the company make decisions about future product development.

This is how a company can turn Social Media Networking into Social Business. Social Media Integration is more than just a Facebook and Twitter account and their linking to the company website - it's a change in the company ethos.

Social Business:

Once a company embraces Social Media and starts to use it to benefit the customers, then that business is starting down the road of Social Business. With Social Business, customers interact with the brand and send valuable information to the company to use for future improvements or innovations.

Social Business is the opportunity for existing and future customers to choose to receive your product/service information. This interaction is increasingly done from their mobile phones, which means your brand is literally in their hands, 24/7.

Social Media or Web 2.0 marketing has developed exponentially, Facebook is now bigger than Google, YouTube is bigger than Yahoo! This means that these Web 2.0 marketing sites have the means of driving more traffic to your website than the big search engines. The third party reviews help people choose your product and location based services help them find you.

How much money does a company spend on surveys, usability studies, etc?
With Social Business, this information is shared by customers as part of their daily activity.
People want to interact. Few like completing a survey.

Two Fat Fingers designs interactive Facebook Fan pages that engage visitors from the start.

Media usage - years to reach 50 million users:

• 38 years for radio
• 13 years for TV
• 4 years for the Internet
• 3 years for the iPod
• 200 million users in less than 1 year for Facebook

Social Media usage stats:

• 152 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse)
• 25 billion – Number of sent tweets on Twitter in 2010
• 100 million – New accounts added on Twitter in 2010
• 175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010
• 600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010
• 250 million – New people on Facebook in 2010
• 30 billion – Pieces of content (links, notes, photos, etc.) shared on Facebook per month
• 70% – Share of Facebook's user base located outside the United States
• 20 million – The number of Facebook apps installed each day

*Source: www.pingdom.com