Social Media 101: The Basics

Social media can be defined as a variety of digital, interactive technology that facilitates the creation and sharing of information, ideas, and more via virtual networks and communities. Different social media platforms behave differently and can range in use and format. For example, Twitter focuses on short captions (280 characters) and sharing links, whereas Instagram focuses on image and video content, and allows for long form captions (2220 characters.)

The purpose of social media for a business is to establish and build your brand’s visibility. Unlike traditional mass media, social media enables virtually anyone to reach the public with little restriction or monetary investment. Social media is like your business’ personal, public billboard to broadcast the latest and greatest from your business!

Common social media applications today include: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, WeChat, YouTube, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Reddit, Alignable, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and more.

Inception

The concept of social networking is older than the Ice Age. The advent of the Internet gave way to virtual, faster means of connecting and with it—SixDegrees.com—the first social media platform was born in 1997. (It still exists today!—Be careful if you want to visit, it is not a secured website.)

Since 1997, social media continued to grow and innovate with websites like AmIHotorNot.com in 2000, and Friendster in 2002—both precursors and big influences for today’s modern social media. Some of today’s most popular social media sites started in the early-mid 2000s like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, to name a few. These platforms continued to grow, monetize, and expand over the years with advertising and premium subscriptions.

Over the last 23 years, social media has made it easier to network and connect with people online. Today, there are over 3.5 billion social media users worldwide.

Why Does It Matter?

Since 1997, social media has turned into a booming industry—valued today at $61.4 billion dollars.

A professional social media strategy often can take the role of a single full-time employee, if not more. There are numerous elements to consider when creating your social media strategy such as: where to post, what to post, and when to post. Additionally, strategies should be in place for maintaining, enhancing, and monetizing your social media presence over time.

While social media is primarily for sharing ideas and content—the Internet has advanced a lot since 1997. That means, a winning social media strategy can do more than simply spread the word. In fact, a consistent, solid presence on key social media platforms can also benefit your business website with off-page SEO benefits.

In short, producing consistent content on social media with links back to your website is evidence of your business interacting with high authority social media websites. This is a signal to search engines about the credibility of your business, and when people search for your business online, they may encounter not only your business website, but links to your business’ social media profiles in search engine results. This helps users searching online have as much information as possible about your business, and it drowns out some of your competition with more information highlighting your business.

Where To Begin

Our core social media strategy creates a solid foundation for your business on leading social platforms. This core program is excellent for clients who are interested in producing their own social media content intermittently. The combination of content from Beedash and your business, can create a consistent and reproducible social media presence.

In addition to our core social media service, we have the tools to offer a customized social media strategy tailored to your business. Our supplemental social media services are designed to suit your business, budget, and goals. Additional services include page like campaigns, post boosts, additional posts, and event posts. These services can help your business gain more followers, enhance engagement, and ultimately provide intrinsic SEO benefits over time.

Producing consistent content on social media with links back to your website is evidence of your business interacting with high authority social media websites. This is a signal to search engines about the credibility of your business, and when people search for your business online, they may encounter not only your business website, but links to your business’ social media profiles in search engine results.