Social media combines the power of viral marketing and networking to provide substantial benefits to businesses that are savvy enough to capitalize on these consumer-oriented platforms. In fact, companies and individuals that don't interact with their consumer base via social media are likely to fall behind in sales and market share and eventually be viewed as obsolete. This means that effectively utilizing social media for business purposes could mean the difference between a business that dominates its competition and one that flounders and fails. The following are four major benefits that can be realized with effective use of social media.

1.) Sharing and Viral Marketing

Viral marketing can sometimes be so powerful that it can overwhelm a business's capability to respond- at least initially. Therefore, planning a major social media event should be done carefully and with the advice of a professional social media management company. If you post a story, video, picture, anecdote, article or any other content on a social media website it's likely that a small percentage of your fans will share the item among their friends, and those will share among their friends, and so on. One well-timed post can quickly generate hundreds and even thousands of views and shares.

2.) Search Engine Optimization

When viral marketing happens SEO is a natural by product. As mentioned above, social media takes your content and distributes it across a wide variety of networking platforms. Each time it is shared there is a link or other record created of this that search engines can index and use to determine a site's or page's weight in search results. Social media is an effective way to build links and increase a business's WUZZ factor - a measure of the popularity of a page or piece of content.

3.) Online Reputation Management

The idea of social media is to keep your fans interacting at your place - meaning on your wall. However, this means that fans and customers will post when they are happy and satisfied, but they'll also post when they're unhappy as well. While some business owners might see this as a liability, others recognize it for the public relations opportunity that it is. By dealing with these types of situations in a public setting (provided you handle them professionally) you'll be able to showcase your good nature, fairness, intelligence and compassion in a public setting, and that's great for PR. In some cases how you handle an angry customer can land you tons of news business and solidify the loyalty of existing customers.

4.) Brand Awareness & Brand Loyalty

There are tons of examples of businesses that have used social media to develop powerful brands or to ever more permanently cement their existing brands. By interacting with current and potential consumers in social networks, you'll get the power of being "seen." This includes your logo and identifying images and associations with the products, services and markets your business belongs to. If customers "see you around" in the social network, they're more likely to trust you and your brand and recommend you to their friends and extended networks.

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