Social media marketing provides a way for businesses to get the word out to their target audience in a way that was never available before. This article outlines a number of methods for getting the most out of your social media marketing.

Viral Content

With social media marketing you are not restricted to text based content. Videos and photos can also be used to capture the attention of your audience and get your message across. You can choose the type of media based on the message that you want to send out. For instance, you can use photos of your employees on your company’s about page so that your network is familiar with the people in your organization. Videos can be used to display your products, provide demonstrations or to share information. Making your content viral is a way to take your social media marketing up a notch. Your content, whether it is text based, video or a photo can be created with an intentional goal for it to become viral. Include a way to create awareness of your brand and once you do it becomes a great way to gain recognition.

Brand Management

Brand management on social media networks involves using your profiles to actively engage your target audience. Now just to emphasize, the goal is to reach your target audience not a general audience of people who might not be interested in what you have to offer. This is an effective way to use social media since your company will be providing value and engaging with your audience while building trust and creating recognition for your brand.  Consumers purchase from companies they know and trust so by providing value people within your network would think of you first when they need the type of services or products that you offer.

Although this method is really slow and requires a huge time investment the effort placed on building trust will pay off in the long run.

Social Media Targeting

Social Media Targeting is a process where you actively seek out and engage with people who need your products or services.  You can find out about their needs by paying attention to tweets or status updates that mention the need. Once you identify the need you can engage with the person to offer your services. Now there is a very thin line between social media targeting and spamming so you need to be careful of your approach to avoid being labeled as a spammer.

The returns and efforts from social media targeting is usually high but if done the wrong way it could damage the reputation of your company so be careful with this method.

Social signals combine two very important tools in the online world; SEO and social media marketing. If you want to stay on top of the search engines and realize a steady stream of visitors to your site your business needs to adapt to this changing trend. In this article I will show you how.  

Social Signals and Search Engine Optimization

We all saw it coming but it took search engines some time to admit that they indeed were using information collected from top social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to determine where to rank a website in the search engine results. This relationship of social media to search results displayed is what is referred to as social signals. Webmasters who formally discredited the SEO link value of the no follow links from social media sites are not eating their words because those very links are what are being used to determine where your site falls.

Use Your Social Media Profiles to Boost SEO

Now that you know that a social media presence helps boost your site’s rank you need to set up for business page on Facebook and create an account on Twitter and populate these accounts with valuable and keyword optimized content to get results. Grow your fan base and encourage them to share your links across these networks. Finally add links to your social media profiles on your sites in order to grow your following and increase your market reach.

You Should Embrace Social Media

Some critics believe that there is no way that social impact could have an effect on search engine optimization. It might look impossible but remember that search engines are always looking for ways to improve the user experience so this should not be discredited. If by some stretch of the imagination the effect is not as dramatic as some experts seem to think you can still benefit a lot by embracing social media whether or not it has an impact on your SEO. In other words it is a win-win situation.

Search engine optimization is definitely not dead and the explosion of social media is still making waves so these are two methods that you have to embrace if you want to succeed with your online business. Google and Bing have both acknowledged that social media is indeed influencing the results they put out so I think that it’s time that you take their word for it and do all you can to get on board.

If you thought social media couldn’t change anymore after what we witnessed in 2011 well we are seeing even bigger and better changes in social media trends.  Facebook has shaped the business world in many ways as many companies established a presence there to reach new markets and Google+ continues to grow and even affect Google search to a large extent.  As the world of social media continues to evolve here are five social media trends to gear up for in 2012.

Social gaming will continue to rise

If you’ve ever played a social media game you will have to admit that it is addictive. The addiction is catching on as more and more people get drawn in by these games. These are not your average games either. Developed by big name companies like Zynga and others as the trend grows we expect that more and more developers will get on board and promote their games.

The new face of online search  

Searching for products, services and information online will never be the same as major search engines like Google embrace social search. Google has introduced the Google+ social search technology and there is no reason to believe that others won’t follow suit. This type of search is great for internet users too because with it they can conduct searches and get results based on their personal preferences as dictated by their social media profile.

The use of social media for content branding

Go where the crowd is, that is the motto of marketing in business. Businesses small and large are recognizing the potential for viral advertising on social networks and more than that they can do it without spending a fortune. By submitting content through these networks to be rated and circulated companies are gaining recognition and establishing their brand. As the year progresses we will only see a rise in this trend.

Social media marketing

The cost of setting up a social media campaign is significantly less than other traditional forms of marketing and the return on the investment is well worth the costs. Companies who may have resisted this trend in the past are now getting on board and other early investors are branching out and using social media for business to business marketing. This trend will continue to rise this year.

Customer relationship management

Forget about dialing that 800 number and waiting forever to speak to a company rep. Now companies are bringing the service to you. By using social media you can ask and receive almost immediate responses to your questions. More and more companies are bringing the customer service to social media and this is one trend we don’t expect to slow down.

#social media #trends #business #marketing #social gaming #content branding

Social Media analytics

Here is my list of top free social media monitoring and analysis tools.
I wont be going in to much detail on which i like most, in the end everyone has different goals.  It is always best to try them all to see which one suits you best.

1. Socialmention  (easy to use no registration needed).

2. Postrank  ( recently acquired by google, in beta test).

3. Google Alerts (easy to use similar to Socialmention).

4. Twitter Search (my favorite , monitor what is being said about you on Twitter).

5.Twitalyzer ( great tool if you want to analyze your Twitter data). 

6. A URL Shortening Service is a must when posting to Twitter to ensure that your message and link fit within the 140 character limit. Make sure you select a service such as bit.ly or ow.ly that allows for analytics and then stick to the service so you can track and monitor your contents performance.

#SEO #marketing #Social Media  #resources #Analytics #tools

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The more drop dead gorgeous it is, the more simplistic to use it is, the better for them. But there are other important website factors to consider, and if your site doesn’t practice good SEO strategy a larger number of potential users won’t find your beautiful website in the first place.

When a keyword or key phrase is punched into a search engine, such as Google,Yahoo, Bing the search engine sends its crawlers out into the web to find the most useful and relevant websites with information relevant to the search. These crawlers aren’t looking for pretty pictures they’re looking for good old fashioned text: original, relevant, reliable information.

Let’s face it, calling them crawlers, personifies them as living, thinking organisms but we know that they aren’t. They are basic limited functions impeded in their scope. Your website could be a modern marvel of design, navigation and imagery, but if it does not contain enough text, the crawlers simply will not find it, and subsequently many potential users will not find it either.

Many people want a landing image or a main page which is one big splash page that is all made up of flash. This isn’t necessarily good for SEO, because search engines can’t read flash, and yet a great deal of you still want to use the technique.

If you absolutely must use the technique, why not design your landing image or splash page to end at the fold, and include useful text content or text navigation links beneath the fold? For those of you who aren’t aware the fold refers to the area of a page which is visible to the user without the need to scroll down.

This is a great way to find a happy medium between a glorious main image and a good SEO strategy: simply stick all of the juicy, search engine enticing text content beneath the fold.

When it comes time to pick and choose where you post, this chart can help you decide what’s appropriate for you.

Steve Madden’s mobile app intergates Facebook likes so shoppers can share via mobile devices (via Mobile Marketer).

Much of media consumption is shifting to mobile devices, social media is one of the top activities on mobile devices, and mobile commerce in the coming years will quickly jump from a negligible number to a significant revenue stream for marketers in the U.S. and worldwide. This report reviews how all of these trends are coming together and creating new opportunities for marketers.

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