Social Media Marketing (SMM), How to Get Started

Social media marketing can be a cost-effective, efficient and powerful way to gain exposure for small or medium enterprises. It can be difficult to get started with social media. It can be overwhelming to decide which social media tool or website will best suit your company. There are many options available. There are some basic elements of social media that every company should know.

Blogging

A blog is an essential component of any social media marketing campaign. Businesses, big and small, often overlook blogging. Many businesses mistakenly believe that blogging is too casual a medium for getting their message across. You can make blogging what you want. You can make your blog as formal, informative, appropriate, and relevant as you like. Blogging has been a key part of the success stories of some international companies. IBM has many employee blogs. IBM blogs about almost every aspect of its business to show that they are experts in their area.

Blogs are a great way to add relevant content to your website and to use keywords frequently and appropriately – essential for Google to rank you web site high. Blogs can be a great tool for gaining and maintaining respect in your industry, increasing web site traffic, and attracting new clients. Preferably, a blog should be hosted within a subfolder of the same domain as the rest of the web site, for example ‘yourwebsite.com/blog’. Blogger and WordPress are two free blogging platforms that allow users to create and host blogs on-the-fly.

Micro-blogging

Micro-blogging, as the name implies, is made up of small snippets sent in reverse chronological order to a micro-blogging website. Twitter, a popular microblogging site, allows users to read and send updates to their ‘followers’. These updates are called tweets, and can be as long as 140 characters. The user’s profile page displays the tweets and they are sent to other users’ home pages if they choose to ‘follow them’. You can send and get tweets through the Twitter website, via several other applications, and by cell phone.

Businesses can use Twitter to communicate with industry trends and promote their services, as well as gain exposure online. An account on Twitter that is successful can easily gain several thousand followers. This drives traffic to the user’s website and leads to increased sales.

Social Networking Web Sites

You can create a personal profile on social networking websites where you can add personal information, photos and videos. Users can make friends or connect with others, creating an online network of friends.

Facebook, a popular social networking site that is free and accessible to all, has more than 250 million users. You can create networks by city, work, school, or region and then connect with others. Users can add friends, send private and public messages and update their profiles to stay connected with their friends.

Facebook Pages are a way for businesses to promote themselves. They allow users to follow the page and show their support. Great photos, relevant content, and videos are the best ways to attract clients and fans to your Facebook page. This page is a great place for links to your blog, product photos, videos, discount coupons, and other social media accounts you might have on other websites.

Social Bookmarking Web Sites

Social bookmarking websites include Del.icio.us and StubleUpon. Social bookmarking websites allow you to upload web pages, articles and blogs, as well as other online content. They will be ranked and voted on by other users. The order in which entries appear on the content list will be determined by how many votes they have received. The most popular items receive the most visibility and page hits. These sites can often bring in a lot of visitors to the owner’s pages. These sites are used by businesses to promote their products and services. A great content will receive great reviews and, with luck, become an online sensation.

Photo and video sharing

You can upload and share videos to video sharing sites like YouTube. You can share the videos with other users, rate them, comment on them and even rate them. Photo sharing tools also allow you to upload photos online and share them with others. Videos and photos that are creatively unique or entertaining often bring in a lot of traffic to best smm panel the site. Blendtec, a blender manufacturer created the “Will it Blend?” campaign. YouTube campaign. This campaign is engaging and funny, and it has received a lot of attention. Blendtec has seen 700% growth in sales since the campaign began.

Online marketing can be done with a variety of social media tools. This list is not exhaustive, but it’s a good start. These must-have tools are being used by Web 2.0-savvy businesses as part of their marketing strategies as they realize that social media can be an inexpensive and effective way to reach clients, increase sales, and it is also cost-effective.