It’s a new day. Information is swirling around us at warp speed on the Internet. While inundated with sources from all different types of media providing news, photos, videos, advertising, and commentary, one thing is certain, if you opt not to participate chances are that you will be left behind in the dust. The  Social Media Landscape, as pictured in this link to a graphic created by Fred Cavazza , shows community websites, blogging, posting of photos or videos on specific sharing websites and is expanding with continued growth exponentially.  What does it mean for each of us and how can we be involved?

You could consider or may already be involved in social media online.  The current Wikipedia definition of social media is: “Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies.  At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer generated media (CGM).”

There are many ways to participate without throwing yourself into a full time career of Internet activity. It seems to be more about where, what and how you participate. Depending on your motives…whether you are seeking information, promoting your business, or just love to see anything about Arabian horses, you can find a place to participate.

I have been actively involved with online marketing and am learning something new about it everyday. One of the things that is challenging is keeping up with the latest and greatest on the Internet. So let me try to break it down for you simply as to how things appear to me at this moment.

Facebook is probably the most active site for Arabian horse owners and enthusiasts all over the world. It is a social networking site where you have the opportunity to connect with people, make friends, post photos, video and information. People love looking at photos, videos and hearing about each others horses and often comment on them. This includes a lot of people that are just plain interested in Arabian horses that don’t even own them yet. With a global economy and people connecting from all over the world to share information and do business, it seems only logical to participate. My facebook profile can be found at: www.facebook.com/aliciarobertsco

 There is also a Facebook page for the Arabian Horse Insider Fan group .  Many of the visitors to the Arabian Horse Insider website come from Facebook and the fan group has over 1200 members. I often share other peoples photos and videos as well as information they send to me. This raises peoples awareness about other peoples activity. The idea is to interconnect and share the information. It amazes me to see how many people (over 1700)have become my “friend” from around the world with the common interest of Arabian horses.

Twitter is a recent online phenomenon, which requires creating a profile, and was created to allow people to connect with short posts, in a micro-blog, 140 characters at a time. Most of the news agencies, high profile celebrities, sports figures, business titans, as well as millions of other people are on it and sending out tweets of information.  Although you can’t say much, to me the brevity is refreshing and causes you to be concise in your message. You can post links to other websites, including blogs, photos, videos, and interesting stories. 

I created a twitter page for the Arabian Horse Insider and Rob Simpson our web developer embellished it with our logo.  You can find it at www.twitter.com/AHInsider. With all of the “buzz” about twitter we felt it was important to participate there as well. If someone does a search on twitter about Arabian horses any posts about them would be listed. Usually I will post any new programs, blogs, or updates from the Arabian Horse Insider with a link to our site. We often post links to Arabian events worldwide, videos that are posted, and businesses that have news to share. Most of the media organizations around the globe are part of it.  It can be another great way to expose people to information about Arabian horses on a more global scale.

The video website YouTube is typically serving up, online, hysterical videos that my daughter watches repeatedly about people doing ridiculous things.  The incredible thing about it though, is that you can post your video at no charge and people can find it  by searching on topics like Arabian horses. Some of the Arabian videos that have been out there for a while have been viewed over 40,000 times! You can include a link to your website and often this will transport interested people right to you.  If you want to expose people to your horses, put a high quality video up on this site.

Blogging is becoming very popular with two major sites leading the way Wordpress, which is currently how our the AHI site is developed and blogger. You can create a blog, to write about your interests, business, post photos or videos, and pro,vide links to your favorite websites without limitations to length. It can be daily, weekly, monthly or whenever you feel like it depending on your preference. With the millions of blogs on different topics it can be overwhelming, but it is a quick way to share your ideas with others that are interested in your topics. When people search on the internet they may find it based on your content. If you want to learn more about it you can read the book “Clear Blogging” by Bob Walsh. He gives clear steps as to how people can blog, why it is changing the world and how you can join them.  There are many techniques in his book that I have found valuable, especially the idea of making sure your blog is searchable on blogging reference sites like Technorati and feedburner. The more links to your site the greater chance it will be found.

For business professionals the most popular site, in my opinion, seems to be LinkedIn, where you can connect with colleagues, classmates, and other friends to establish a network of business contacts. Much like facebook you create a profile for yourself, and your business if you want. People in every industry are using it to network and create ties to let people know what they are doing. My LinkedIn profile is: www.linkedin.com/in/aliciaroberts

 

If you have a website, in my opinion, you want to connect it to as many possible online sources as you can with links from other sites like the Arabian Horse Association, or place it in a banner ad on a highly trafficed site like ours to draw attention with a link to your site, or on community sites with a link and that will give you visibility that could potentially deliver someone to it. It pays to be somewhat active on these social media websites at posting relevant content, visual content and interacting with others on the sites. With a little time and some effort you can quickly create your own social media marketing campaigns or you can hire me to do it!

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