Seven is a magic number. Why? Because there are seven simple strategies every small business can employ to jump on the social marketing bandwagon. The best part: most require only a moderate investment of time and/or money.
1. Start Blogging - Blogging is old news to many. Not quite the distant past, but still not the future. It certainly does not compare with chasing a link from the front page of Digg. But blogging is alive and well! It continues to be a great way to get interactively connected with your customers. 'Dialoguing' is the reason social marketing exists. How much time you invest in your blog is up to you, but You will get out what you put in. You do not have to drive yourself crazy putting in daily entries, but you should establish a regular schedule for your blog updates. Otherwise, when people check your blog they will see the same-old/same-old so often that they will stop visiting your site, which is the whole reason you started the blog! So do not shoot yourself in the foot by creating a blog that is a visitor-repellent rather than a visitor-magnet.
Blogging is not a monologue. Your blog is not the electronic equivalent of Hamlet us soliloquy. Just the opposite! Blogging is about creating conversations and joining others in progress. Take time to read what others in your industry are saying. Get in on the discussion (and get your name out there) by posting your comments on other blogs. It is free, and again, the amount of time you invest can bring some very big returns. The beauty of blog posts is that You will almost always be encouraged to supply your name and URL when leaving a comment. This is a great way to build visibility and create a springboard to catapult traffic from other blogs to yours.
2. Take and Share Digital Photos - Flickr can be a tremendous marketing tool thanks to its incredibly active photo groups. The time and cost investment are minimal, and you can use Flickr to reach thousands of highly targeted prospects with compelling images of your product.
3. Be The Answer Man (or Woman) at Yahoo Answers - there is one thing you have to provide that no one else does - your expertise. If you are a service-based business, your knowledge is your #1 marketing tool. Yahoo Answers is a great place for you to hammer away at prospects. Imagine being the go-to person that people seek out. That is who You will be at Yahoo Answers.
There is no better way to share your expertise and make an instant and direct connection with potential customers. I know dozens of marketing pros like me who spent as little as an hour or two each week answering SEO and promotion-oriented questions there. They tell me that they have been able to track big results from even that small investment of time.
4. Get Into the Movie Business - Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but moving pictures are worth their weight in solid gold marketing. Fortunately, good video cameras are cheap these days, and a short video needs little editing/production work in today's "everyone's a filmmaker" environment. And if you have got the creative "chops" to add some sizzle to a video, go for it! Be the next Scorsese, if you can. Fortunately, the software you need to add special effects will not break the bank. For marketing purposes, however, a produced video is the way to go and a how-to video featuring your product is a good choice. If the look or location of your business is a selling point, "tour" videos - of a workplace, a restaurant, the homes you sell, the real estate you landscape, etc. - are your best bet.
Marketing videos are finding a home on local search portals like CitySearch. The find-it-in-your-town site announced that local video ads will be added to its listings. YellowPages.com is also exploring the idea of video opportunities.
Upload your videos to a unique page on your website or add them to your blog page. But do not stop there! YouTube is the most obvious - and the most active - sharing destination. And there are so many others.
5. do not Wait To Visit StumbleUpon.com - There are many so-called 'discovery' type sites in social marketing. The best-known are Digg, Reddit, and Netscape, but they are also a bit complicated. StumbleUpon requires the lowest time investment. The site's functionality makes it much quicker and easier to join groups related to your industry and add friends from those groups.
Once you have joined and created your lists, you can start to upload "sticky" (appealing to visitors) content and before you know it, other users will "stumble upon" what you have added. That's when the "magic begins". When visitors give your pages good feedback, your content is shown to even more users.
You can not sell your product or service on StumbleUpon. The benefit it offers is increased traffic, which can lead to increased profits. Those profits are just a click away because your site is just a click away. Think of StumbleUpon as a way to raise awareness, Blog readership, grow subscribers, etc. All of which ultimately feed into your profit stream.
6. Join Up - A HUGE part of social marketing is detective work. You need to find your customers where they like to hang out. Well, if your customers are like most people on the planet, it is pretty likely that they hang out at Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to share interests and opinions.
Like Flickr, the groups at Yahoo and Google are organized into interest-based lists. When you join the lists and discussions, you can provide your expertise (there is that word again) and become a trusted member of the community. Tthe person that other people will want to do business with. there is no better outcome to marketing than that!
7. Make Friends, Not Noise - As you explore social marketing opportunities across the web, be sensitive to the rules and regulations posted on various websites. As a member of a social community, it is your obligation to play by the rules, so make sure you know them and follow them! But here is one general rule for using these sites as marketing tools: do not spam the system. Flickr does not want your entire product inventory posted, and they have rules against doing so. But a few high-quality photo submissions that add to the community are fine.
Whatever social marketing you do, make a contribution to the community. Try to add content and comments of value, not an endless spew of "Buy my product" messages. In other words, do not be a leech that is merely there to suck up prospects. Give back a little. Or, better yet, give back a lot! When you do that, you are on the road to social marketing success. (Translation: more money than You will know what to do with!)
And remember, with social marketing we are not talking about any old traffic. We are talk about platinum, USDA Prime, pre-qualified, eager to do business, trusting, ready and willing prospects who do not think of you as a business, they think of you as a friend.
So be a good friend. Deliver on the promise of quality and service. If you do that, social marketing will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. So stop dreaming and start marketing socially.
Source From SitePro News
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