Columbus Ohio Website Design and Affordable Small Business Marketing

-By Tricia M. Williams

I am a social butterfly by nature, and am completely awed by the concept of “the six degrees of separation”- it utterly enthralls me. I love its power and magnitude, greater than we used to be able to imagine.  The notion of the six degrees is that you are connected to every other person in the world by six people, which is completely amazing and deserves the utmost respect.  But personally, I think that best part about the six degrees is that you can know someone, who knows someone, who knows Brad Pitt.

I got my first real taste of the “six degrees” when I was 13 years old. I had spent the night at my friend’s house and was walking home the next day and as usual, I took the slightly longer way so I could go past my crush’s (let’s call him Brad) home. Brad was every 13 year old girls dream. He was tall, blond, had the bluest eyes and played a mean game of kickball. In the summer and on occasional weekends Brad would go to Hollywood and do some acting. He had done it his whole life and was making a good living for a kid not even in high school. Now it was well known rumor that Brad was great friends with Andrew Keegan. Oh, Andrew Keegan- the tanned, dark haired hottie from “Baywatch”! His pictures were everywhere in my school, which made Brad a celebrity in his own right. So as I walked past his home, I peered into his living room window as I had a million times hoping for a quick glance (that would lead to ‘going out’, which would lead to marriage, naturally), and there standing right in front of me, was the most glorious proof of the rumor: Andrew Keegan, shirtless and drinking a juice box. I nearly died, frozen in the street watching this real life celebrity stare back at me. After a few humiliating seconds I ran home and proceeded to call every single one of my friends (and my enemies because why wouldn’t I rub it in their faces) about my run-in with fate.

So what does all of this have to do with social media you may be wondering? It’s simple: I know Brad, who knows Andrew Keegan (for real!) who knows countless other Hollywood celebrities. It’s the six degrees, hard at work and in my favor. Now Andrew Keegan has fallen off the radar, but still he knows people, which means I am only that much closer to Mr. Pitt. Social media works in the exact same way. By connecting to a person on Facebook for example, you open yourself up to their friends, and their friends friends and so on. Social media connects you to millions of people without even trying in a short period of time. In fact, as far as advertising goes, social media allows you to target audiences and spread your brand, idea, product or service faster than any other advertising medium EVER. By connecting to friends on Facebook alone will allow you to reach an audience of up to 50 MILLION potential customers in two short little years. If that’s not a big bag full of goodies, then I don’t know what is.

It’s amazing when you think of the power and scope of social media. In a webinar I sat in this morning, one of the presenters had over 100,000 followers on Twitter. That means his message, be it a quote or a deal, goes out to over 100,00 people at the click of a mouse. It’s incredible to think that such a vast audience is out there and waiting. And they are definitely waiting and signing up by the droves. Facebook gets over 600,000 new users a DAY. In a single day. And they’re out there waiting to be friended by companies just like yours and mine who want to offer them the best deals out there. And when they get those deals, they tell their friends who want the same deal, and friend you. And their friends friend you. It’s one beautiful, complicated and wide circle.

So really social media networking turns us all into the 13 year old me, instantly connecting ourselves to the world in a flash by knowing someone who knows someone who knows someone else. But the greatest part about the modern day six degrees of separation is that we can see this mystical concept with our own eyes. It’s right there on paper- tangible proof that we are in fact connected to the entire world by six people and that world is ready to be exposed to your business and what you have to offer. Harnessing the power of social media and putting that power into the hands of the experts can only help your business grow. Developing a smart and proactive Social Media marketing strategy is a key investment to the growth and development of your business. There’s a great deal more to it than just adding friends and doing a few updates on your wall. Targeting the right market is imperative, coupled with the utilization of keywords and traditional marketing strategies is the underlying foundation to a successful campaign.

There’s no end in sight to the social media boom and no reason to believe that social media will become a faded memory of pop culture. Every network you join, every tweet you make is a step deeper into the exponentially growing social media world. It’s all there, collaborated on your computer screen and neatly displayed, waiting to grow and expand even further. The six degrees of separation has entered the technological revolution and is spreading like wildfire across the globe, affecting your potential clients. But the greatest thing about the digitization of the six degrees is that along with building your social media empire, you can now also take quizzes about what kind of beer you should be.

Tags: business, client, columbus, development, facebook, goodies, mywebwow, networking, social media, social media marketing, tricia williams, tweet, twitter web design

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2009 at 7:13 pm and is filed under Social Media Columbus Ohio Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.