The Digital Handshake: Seven Proven Strategies to Grow Your Business Using Social Media

INTRODUCTION: A NEW COMMUNICATIONS PARADIGM

A sea change has taken place, and now anyone with access to a computer or mobile device and the Internet can become a publisher, not just a consumer, of information. Everyone, both amateur and professional alike, has the ability to produce content and share information, opinion, and editorial commentary and make it available to the entire world with the click of a mouse. What used to be known as the information superhighway has become an interconnected maze of conversation, a global symphony of voices speaking at once. This has vast implications for business. New terminology has even evolved to describe this phenomenon—the "participatory Web," "social media," and, as previously mentioned, "Web 2.0."

No longer can companies turn a deaf ear to the conversation that is taking place through these manifold channels. Businesses must develop engagement strategies to:

• Counter negative perceptions about their brands, people, products, and services

• Reward those who speak well of them

• Use the same media as consumers to generate brand awareness, create positive brand impressions, and incite customer evangelism and word of mouth.

Further, the way businesses market themselves has changed. No longer do companies merely target audiences and broadcast messages through unidirectional mass media. In this new paradigm, "markets are conversations" and "participation ...