Tapping the Social Media Opportunity

If you are new to social media marketing, take it slowly and take a few steps at a time. You don't have to become an expert on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or any other social media network. Good marketing is good marketing whether you're doing print advertising or online advertising. So, all the basic fundamentals of good marketing still apply to social media. The technology may have changed but the basics haven't. Here are a few tips that may help you jump into the pool of social media.

• Make your website a destination for your target audience. Your page rank is mostly determined by how many pages you have on your site and also how many inbound links you have; not necessarily by how many websites you link to. Google and other search engines look at your site as being trusted if other reputable sites are linking to your site. So offer items of interest on your site that other sites might want to link.

• Advertise on the blogs of interest to your customers. Do you know what they are reading and why? Start your own blog and advertise it. Place banner ads on sites and blogs of interest to your customer base. Add rich media such as gaming, videos, surveys, etc. to your online ads.

• Use social media yourself. If you're not familiar with social media, open a Twitter account, start your own blog, or sign up for one of the social media sites such as LinkedIn. Try it first. Then start using it to promote your company. But, be careful. No one likes a spam artist/scam artist. So, only provide information of value to your target audience. You can show that you are an expert in your field but you shouldn't blatantly solicit sales in a discussion forum.

Remember .. technology is with us to stay and we must adopt it; but, also use the new technology wisely. Good old-fashioned marketing strategies still work but you just have to modernize them with new tactics.