Ten Basic Concepts of Social Media Marketing

What is Social Media Marketing? It’s the use of various websites designed to socialize content . Popular websites include Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.

Many small businesses find out that social media marketing is important in today’s business environment, but most of them haven’t a clue how to properly use these websites to their advantage. Below are 10 basic concepts of successful social media marketing intended to help any business succeed in this arena.

1. Keep it Fresh! Seems obvious, but this may be the most overlooked basic concept in using the social websites. Often the enthusiasm of a website owner wanes after a few weeks of dabbling with Twitter or Facebook and after a few more weeks they stop posting all together. This is a terrible strategy and works against the business in many ways. Content becomes stale and outdated quickly. Those who visit the content quickly see that so and so hasn’t updated their page in quite a while and lose interest fast. This gets amplified when a user has a competitor that updates their page regularly. Try to dedicate at least 2 days per week (at a minimum) to stay on top of your posts.

2. No Infomercials! While the whole point of any social media for your business is to promote, being too obvious about it will hurt your objectives. Most people see right through it and they don’t like reading your one-line advertisements on their Twitter feed. I can’t count how many times I started to follow someone on Twitter only to get bombarded with one-line ads pointing me to some product or service constantly. Once in a while you can point out something that way, but doing it routinely will turn people off. Be creative, be subtle.. it’s the only way.

3. Interact. Often new users on Twitter or Facebook simply start posting stuff with links to their content on their website and never talk to anyone. It’s called social media for a reason. Be social! Don’t be aloof and strictly commercial.

4. Connect with Others. Whether you are on Facebook or Twitter it is important that you connect with others by following or friending them. Don’t get carried away with this, but making connections with people who are in similar lines of business can lead to indirect followers from those seeking your type of product or service. Make sure you establish some content on your page before you start connecting. Show people you are serious about your social media and they will follow.

5. Watch what you say. Everything you post on your Facebook or Twitter page becomes public when you are intentionally seeking followers or business friends. Unlike your personal Facebook page, your business page is being promoted. It is wise to be very careful what you say and how people may take it. While it is a good practice to personalize comments occasionally so you don’t seem like a robot, making controversial comments or polarizing political statements can suddenly make you appear undesirable.

6. Avoid Arguments and Emotional Discharges. While you don’t want to seem too robotic and inhuman, you don’t want to be argumentative and sarcastic either. If someone starts inciting you to argue, don’t do it. If someone makes you really mad, go for a walk and do not reply with anything but kindness. This avoids making you look like an angry bigmouth, and turns the table on the other guy. Sometimes saying nothing at all in such situations is best.

7. Show you are Human. I have alluded to this already, but it can’t be said enough. Don’t be a robot. Post a good clean joke, a funny (family friendly video), retweet other’s tweets that are off topic but fun in some way. Make a personal comment now and again that is safe from controversy, but very human. This can really get people following on Twitter and likewise on Facebook.

8. Create a Regular thing. By regular I mean every week or month or some other regular interval. Make a top ten list that you publish every Monday for example. Create a contest. Post a video of the week, or some other regular event or thing that you do which can create anticipation. If you do this with some real thought, it can start quite a following.

9. Link Back to your own Blog or Website. Showing people your well-written blog that is up-to-date is key to getting some traffic to your website. When you post a new article on your Blog, make sure you Tweet it and post the link on Facebook. Get people to find your website. Don’t overdo it though. Make sure you are also doing a lot of non-self-promotional linking also.

10. Promote your Social Sites. Once you have established some decent amount of posts and content on your Social Medial outlets, post some links to your pages on whatever websites you control. Like many businesses today, it has become widely acceptable to put Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube icons right on your homepage. This gets things flowing in the other direction.

About The Author
Derek Smith is a web developer and content writer for a number of major websites. Find out more about web development at Core Web Solutions website.