The attraction of social media for many is the low-cost entry. A few tweets and Facebook posts cost nothing but time. But to garner any sort of return on this time, your social media output needs to be refined and engaging. Its not enough to simply post messages and broadcast your news and products. You need to engage in conversations because its difficult to build up a presence on line without this. Of course, creating a buzz on line demands a commitment to investing the effort involved in cultivating and building a following. So, would you invest time and money in this? Spending hard-won profit on a social media specialist might be expensive but the return might also be well worth the investment. Because you can't do this half-heartedly, it needs a certain level of input, and this means you've got to put out to get in. Here's a great little blog post on social media marketing spending...

More than 100 million less searches carried out on search engines in the UK fromJuly-August. 40 million less searches carried out August-September. So what's happening? the rise and rise of social media, that's what. Because the increasing trend for those in the know is to find the answers and information they're looking for on the social web. Although Google remains the king of all search methods, its lead is gradually being eroded by the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
So what is the real significance of this shift? Those in the know say its this; Social media is becoming more and more important in driving traffic to websites that search engine optimisation, and it might be that the days of search engine optimisation (SEO) are slipping into the past. Is it worth businesses spending hard earned cash on SEO when there might not be any return on this investment?

Probably not. Indeed, it all points towards money spent on social media being a far better bet.

Nobody questions the necessity to engage with their potential audience. It's not enough to fire out tweets at regular intervals and then ignore any responses. Nothing will get you unfollowed quicker than ignoring your followers by using one-way tactics. Building up relationships through conversations is so important, as is communicating your message. Video is one way which, if done well, will captivate your audience and get them interacting with all your other social media formats as well. YouTube has positioned itself at the interface between video and social media, with some good tools which allow users to build their own YouTube 'channels' containing their own original work as well as favourite and recommended material, all in a format which can be exported to a blog, as well as being used to drive traffic to your website. Tweeting links to video will engage your followers, and clever social bookmarking (using Delicious, Digg and Reddit) of your stuff all help your site with search engine rankings.

There are five things you need to remember when using video.

1. Keep your video short and sweet. Five minutes is about the optimum length. Any longer and you will turn off your audience and your message will be lost as viewers head for the kettle !

2. Keep your video simple. Nothing turns off the audience than unintelligible gobbledegook, so keep the technical stuff for your specialist on-line library.

3. Keep your video fun. People want to be entertained, and will watch your material, and more importantly, come back to your site if they find it amusing. So if it fits your message, make it funny. You might even find yourself achieving cult status, or even going viral !

4. Keep your video relevant. The whole point of video is to promote your message, so aim for clarity and don't include irrelevant waffle. Promote your message, and avoid using video that has nothing to do with your core interest area.

5. Keep your video original. If its been passed around the interweb then it does nothing for your message unless you are in at the start. Just put out video which is as close to your brand as possible. Using funny stuff just so that you are appearing to use video is a bad move, and folks will probably have seen kit already anyway!


Video can be a meaningful addition to your social media strategy, but if done wrong, is time wasted. It should be a valuable tool for reinforcing your message, building an audience and engaging with them. After all, most people enjoy discussing video and film, so blog your video and start the discussion.
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