Many social media sites started out as personal sites but social media marketing has become one of the most powerful online strategies for businesses, online and offline.
In 2002, Friendster was launched in the U.S and then in 2003 MySpace began.
Next to be launched was Facebook in 2004. Facebook was originally started for students but quickly spread to be much more. Twitter was born two years later in 2006. Pinterest, said to be the fastest growing site ever, was launched in 2010.
All these sites, along with others, have become powerhouses in social media marketing. As each year passes the possibilities continue to grow and expand. There probably are not many businesses left that do not engage in social media marketing.
These social sites are continually growing, expanding and changing and it can sometimes be difficult to keep up with these changes. Below are the top ten tips to help your social media marketing in 2013.
1. Make your posts more relevant – When people first started using the social sites they were posting things like “Going shopping today with the kids. Wish me luck!” The social sites have grown and changed. You need to start posting more relevant information. Make it about your readers and followers, not about you. Post solutions, inspiration, and interesting facts that can be useful and helpful.
2. Utilize features and tools – Social sites are increasing the possibilities for your business with more tools and features than ever before. Take stock of all these tools and learn to use them for the benefit of your followers and your business.
3. Visual Marketing – Marketing is going visual and you need to do the same. Embed text and your business info in relevant graphics to post. Pinterest, using image sharing, has broken records with its growth. Pictures are also the mostly widely used and shared method of posting on Facebook. When people share your images you want them to see your website link or other relevant info.
4. Help Your Clients/Readers – No matter what business you are in, you cannot provide solutions to all your clients’ needs. Be willing to post links, information and resources of other businesses that can help your clients where you cannot.
5. Use Your Analytics – Review your analytics regularly to see what is working and what isn’t. Are people visiting one social site more than others? When are people visiting your pages? Find out everything you can from your results. You can learn a lot from your analytics but you must utilize them to reap the benefits.
6. Host Events – Hold regular events such as giveaways, seminars, chats, networking parties, promotions, etc. Facebook has recently updated their event feature so it is easier and more efficient.
7. Connections Not Sales – Use your social media pages to connect with your potential customers not for sales. You want to use social media to share information, respond to questions and comments and to showcase what your business is about. You don’t want to continually bombard your social sites with sales pitches and ads. Help your followers find solutions, do not pitch to them.
8. Slideshare – Slideshare is predicted to be the fastest growing social site in 2013. Slideshare will allow you to share your presentations with millions. You can also share documents, PDFs and videos. The possibilities are endless with this Slideshare.
9. Google+ – Google+ will be more important to your business. By being on Google+, you will be able to take full advantage of Google’s many services and tools. It hasn’t the social power of some of the other sites but it is a central part of Google and you should be a part of it.
10. Use Fewer Social Sites – Concentrating your marketing efforts to a few of the better producing sites is more effective than spreading yourself too thin over many of the social sites. The time it takes to successfully participate in social media is substantial so you need to build a strong presence on the sites that deliver rather than trying to dominate them all.
Social media marketing is expected to reach new and unequaled heights in 2013. Don’t let your business be left behind. Become active with social media. Really get involved. Make new connections and post relevant visual items. Make it about your followers and clients, not about what cereal you had for breakfast!
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Whether you use it to keep up to date on the latest news from your friends, add new friends to your circle, send messages to coworkers, or build business relationships – chances are you already use some form of social network.
How can you turn those online communities into a source of social media marketing to grow your business? Social media marketing can help you learn what customers really want. What you think they want and what they actually do want can sometimes be very different things.
By harnessing various social platforms you can not only give your business more exposure that can spread like wildfire as members refer others to your product or service, but you can interact with people to learn exactly what they want, tweaking your sales pitch to appeal better to your target market. In today’s world filled with the uncertainty of scams and rip-offs, people don’t want to deal with just any business that might be legit, they want to know that it is legit.
By building up a trusted personal relationship with potential customers via social media marketing, you can persuade them to like you and trust you. Social media marketing is an enormously powerful way to promote your business. But like anything you need to be able to weed out the winners from the losers so as to use your time and efforts effectively.
What are some basic platforms that you should include in your social media marketing efforts and how can you use them?
# 1 Social Bookmarking: Essentially social bookmarking works like this – you post a link on the network to a news item, article, or video hosted on your site. Members can then vote for your link boosting it further up the listings for others to see. This form of social media marketing can also help to improve your search engine rankings. Digg and Propeller are examples of two popular social bookmarking sites.
#2 Discussion Forums: Forums provide a fantastic way to interact with people who are interested in your particular business niche. Most discussion forums allow you to post a signature that links back to your website, this is automatically attached to the bottom of every post you make on the forum. By making helpful posts or answering other member’s questions you can attract people to your business through this form of social media marketing.
# 3 Social Networking: Even if you are not to familiar with the other methods mentioned above, you are likely familiar with this method. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to make personal connections with contacts, adding them as friends and building up trust over time.
Yes, this concept works just as well to form business relationships as it does for anything else. Joining groups related to your business on these networks or using the networks paid advertising services are both excellent ways to leverage this type of social media marketing.
Just remember to treat people with respect as a friend, don’t spam them. By using social media marketing wisely, it can become one of the most effective methods of promotion for your business!
marketing – Yahoo! News Search Results