The way that business is conducted, and the way that people find out information concerning businesses, has changed a great deal in the last twenty years. Twenty years ago business representatives had never heard of social media, and they go t their information on the public opinions of their products and services through word of mouth, and through satisfaction questionnaires.

Today social media plays a large part in the way a company advertises their products, and how they collect data that alerts them to consumer opinions about their products. Social media plays a large part in the lives of people, communities, and corporations decisions concerning their actions.

What is Social Media?

Social media is the online websites where people gather virtually to share information with one another. The biggest names in social media have been MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Each person has a social media account and they allow friends, relatives, and some others, to read the information they put up on these accounts, to comment on their posts, and to make posts to their pages.

How Does Social Media Affect Business Decisions?

Social media is the method of word of mouth advertising. Most businesses will agree that the best, and the worst, advertising that a company can receive is by word of mouth.

When a person buys something and they like the item they bought they will inevitably tell other people about their purchase, what they liked about their purchase, and how to make the same purchase. When you hear a friend or relative tell you that they purchased an item, and that they really liked that item, then you are more likely to buy that item for yourself. That is because you trust what your friend has to say, and you are influenced by their opinion. You are probably going to mention the product to other friends you have, and they will tell their friends, and this keeps growing like a snowball headed down a hill.

When a person buys something and they do not like what they bought, or they feel that they did not get their money’s worth from their purchase, they will tell all of their friends and relatives about their experience. When you hear that a friend was dissatisfied with a purchase they made you are likely to not buy that item because you value the opinion of your friend. You are also likely to tell other people you know about the experience your friend had so you can save other friends from wasting their time or money on something you feel in not worth buying.

Word of mouth advertising is important to a business because a lot of people get to hear about the business products, and the opinions of those people are swayed by what they hear.

Social media is a method of spreading word of mouth advertising. Social media lets the opinions of one person be shared with hundreds, or thousands, of other people in a short amount of time. These opinions can increase a company sales or it can decrease them according to what is said.

What is Social Media Tracking?

Social media tracking is the action of watching the social media websites for things that pertain to your business. Most companies today have their own social media accounts so they can get the word about their business to the people. Social media tracking lets a company representative know what is being said about their company, who likes the products, who does not like the products, and what improvements people think should be made to the products.

To do social media tracking someone must follow your social media account to see what people are posting to the pages of the account. Some of the things that are considered during this information gathering are:

• Do people like your page? How many people like your page?
• Are people commenting on the products or services that you offer?
• Are people sharing your page with their friends?
• Are the comments left on your page positive or negative?
• Are people talking about your products or services on their private pages?

Do You have to Hire a Professional Company to do Social Media Tracking?

You do not have to hire a company to do social media tracking for you. This activity does not take a lot of precise educational requirements, but it does take a lot of time, and it takes someone who is familiar with social media sites and how they operate.

In order to do this type of tracking a person needs to be aware of search engine optimization techniques so they can use those techniques to help them discover who is talking about your company, and where those comments are located.

Each social media site works differently and the person doing the tracking needs to be familiar with the way the site operates, and they need to know how to gather the information they need.

While doing this tracking a person can spend several hours online each day. To do the tracking you have to:

• Visit each social media site each day
• Search through the site for any references to your company or product
• Have enough time to scour the sites and follow each lead

An inexperienced person could spend several hours a day on each of the major social media sites. Most of us do not have the time it would take for us to do this tracking. Professional companies have employees that go to the websites and find the information you need for you.

You pay a small monthly fee and those professional tracking services have their employees make note of every time they see anything about your company. They even send you notifications of what they saw about your company, where they saw it, the time of day they saw it, and the URL so you can go see it for yourself.

All you have to do is sit back and wait for the service to inform you of what they have found.