subject: The Importance of Social Media Marketing - Tips to Get Started [print this page] Social media will be here for a long timeSocial media will be here for a long time. Social media participation by consumers hit the ground running and has yet to stop growing. That's where the business end comes in. That's where brand awareness, reputation, and marketing can help your business thrive on the social web. So why does social media marketing matter so much for web businesses? People online now have shorter attention spans, they're bombarded with information, they have a wide range of mobile technology, and they have a need for instant gratification. This isn't bad, especially for businesses who know how to market. One sentence on Twitter could put your business on the map. One video on YouTube could delight fans and bring in new customers. But you have a lot of competition in the social web world. So how do you stand out? Let's go over some basics. Plan You want to plan to engage customers, prospects, and communities online. It's tough to stand out in any web marketing form, but if you set up a foundation to get customers listening to you but most of all, you listening to them, you can stand out. Create a social media marketing stategy Outline how you will participate, how your company will participate, and how your employees will participate in social media marketing. You want to respond to the good and bad of social media marketing. Some customers will be happy, some angry, some will be curious; if your employees have a clear strategy in front of them, they can handle most situations with ease. If you set up a rule for handling both happy and unhapppy customers, you can focus on other important tasks. If this sounds complex, you may want to read the outline other companies create for handling social media marketing. Goals It's no different than starting a business. You need to have methods for increasing sales, getting new prospects, getting more hits, setting up conversations, listening to people and more. These goals should be clear. Have a yardstick for what you define as a failure and a success. You might not hit everything the way you want--one social networking site fails to bring new customers for instance--but more often than not some will succeed too. Read the full article here, it includes 5 more tips.
The Importance of Social Media Marketing - Tips to Get Started
