Developing A Basic Social Media Strategy

By Author: Jamie Hanson
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Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn-these are names that have become buzzwords not only among consumers but also among business marketers. In today's online marketing environment, companies that have not developed a viable social marketing strategy fall leagues behind their social media savvy competitors. Now is the time to develop and implement a social media marketing strategy that will put your name in front of audiences and help increase not only brand recognition and loyalty, but also trust.

Your primary goal when developing a social marketing strategy should be to establish conversation parameters. You cannot possibly control the direction of every conversation, nor should you try to, but you can be available to answer questions and provide honest and helpful input wherever possible. People visit social networking sites because they want to have conversations that don't involve sales pitches. In order to gain trust, you'll need to create an environment in which potential customers feel free to express opinion without fear of being censored, but also in which you can provide responses to negative comments that help viewers ...
... understand the reasons behind your company's actions in any particular area. When appropriate, you can point readers toward your product, but in such a way that they feel you are providing useful information rather than pitching your company.

Facebook and Twitter provide the logical starting place for your social media strategy. If you don't have accounts at these two sites, create them as soon as possible. By doing so, you'll reserve your company username and gain instant access to millions of viewers. Evaluate the presence of your competitors and begin building a platform from which you can provide information about your company to your target audience. The next step in your social media strategy should be to create a company blog. Determine what issues are likely to be important to your target audience and blog about them. Creative content and excellent writing will help you build a loyal audience that will share your blog posts with friends and attract more readers to your site.

LinkedIn offers business networking with millions of users. If you're not a member, sign up immediately to begin building a network of contacts that can help you promote your business. Work toward receiving recommendations from customers and colleagues on your LinkedIn account, since these can help you gain credibility and increase your search result ranking. LinkedIn is especially beneficial for those who are B2B.

Once you've built the base for your social media strategy by creating the accounts above, it's important that you become active in other venues around the web. Participate in other people's blogs and keep an eye out for mentions of your company or service at other sites. Set up Google alerts for your company and/or your name and respond to comments that are made about your company or product. By maintaining an active presence on the web, you can build customer loyalty and trust while gaining a greater audience for your company's services and products.

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