How to Start a Successful Social Media Marketing Business

Social media marketing is the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites.

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it across their social networks. The resulting electronic word of mouth (eWoM) refers to any statement consumers share via the Internet (e.g., web sites, social networks, instant messages, news feeds) about an event, product, service, brand or company. When the underlying message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself, this form of marketing results in earned media rather than paid media

Social media is no different from a work that requires an understanding of the appropriate tools for the job. You can’t plant a seed without a soil, and you can’t pitch hay with a shovel. If you are one of the budding entrepreneurs or an owner of a small business, you should consider how to communicate about your product and new service.

Social media marketing is an art form, and with the right social media marketing solution, business owners can master it.

Although social media platforms offer their ownmarketing tools — Twitter targeted ads, Facebook Pages,Google+ Local and Pinterest Promoted Pins, to name a few — social media marketing solutions streamline the process while helping businesses avoid alienating followers. Constantly pushing advertisements and sales copies no longer works on today's increasingly social-media-savvy consumers, which means businesses need to take on a more strategic, relationship-building approach. Here are 19 social media marketing solutions to help you get there.

Instruction:

Step 1

What do your audience want? if you're not sure, carry out a survey on existing and/or possible consumers to learn about what they would look for from your company.You can structure your promotional activities around your findings.

Step 2

Post regular, useful or entertaining updates. The more often you share interesting or informative content with your fans and followers, the more often you will catch their attention. While to many it may seem counterproductive to spend your time finding an article or blog post that your fans would like and then sharing it, it actually builds credibility and authority in the eyes of your readers. Over time, your brand or website will become known as something to trust in the mind of your readers. When it comes time for them to make purchasing decisions, the value of that trust cannot be overstated.

Step 3

Build relationships. As mentioned above, creating relationships with your customers is one of the parts of social media marketing that gives it so much power. You can build these relationships by posting updates that users actually want to read, not just a never ending stream of sales pitches. Use your updates to inform, entertain and address the needs of your customers. Open up a two-way conversation with them via the comments sections and message boards that many social media sites include. These relationships build credibility and help keep your company in the mind of the reader.

Step 4

Forget about going viral. Viral content is a posting or piece of information that someone has created that is shared by thousands, if not millions, of people across the Internet. This posting will often find itself on dozens of different sites. Some even make their way onto television news, and they will more than likely spawn many parodies and response postings. A piece of viral content can be a gold mine, albeit a short lived one, for the poster. However, determining whether or not something will go viral is like trying to write on water. Millions of dollars have been wasted by companies both big and small trying to create something that will go viral. Ninety nine times out of a hundred, that piece of content that some marketing team thought would be viral wound up being ignored completely.

Step 5

Maintain a consistent message. This is where a social media manager or the hiring of an SEO services company comes in really handy. When you are posting information across several different sites, it is easy for the message you are trying to convey to become garbled as you try to tailor that message for a variety of media and audiences. The voice you choose for Facebook will not work on Reddit or Tumblr, and many business owners do not have the experience or the time to learn the local lingo of all the various social media outlets. If you do not have the budget for an SEO services company, then it is best to limit yourself to the social media sites that you are comfortable writing for. Many website communities are rude, if not outright hostile, to someone who shows up and obviously has no interest in the site other than posting their own promotional material.

Step 6

Participate in the community. As stated above, social media sites are usually tightly knit communities, particularly sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Digg. The users of these sites can spot marketers a mile away, usually because the marketer does nothing more on the site than post information about various products. In order to gain trust (and followers) within one of these communities, you must be willing to participate as well. This is usually done in the form of commenting on the postings of others and the sharing or re-sharing of posts that have absolutely nothing to do with marketing or consumerism. If you choose to hire an SEO services company, it will have a person or a team of people who are dedicated to maintaining community involvement on your behalf.

Step 7

Be careful of what you post. In the rush to get new postings out the door, it is often tempting to skip editing, proofreading and screening of the content. However, this is a very dangerous game. Unfiltered content has been the downfall of many companies trying to establish a social media presence, and some companies have even lost their entire business because they allowed someone to post rude or demeaning comments directed at unhappy customers. Even a simple spelling error can turn an innocent post into a racial slur, so it is imperative that you screen, edit and proofread all content before posting it.

Step 8

Attract the public's attention. Bonuses, leaflets, etc.

Step 9

Sales promotion in fact is the process of self-promotion: bold, careful. Can capture every word meaning, and that contains "only the fittest can be invincible".

Step 10

Alongside social media, there are other ways to promote your business on the Internet. If your company has a website, highlight your promotions on your website's main page. Go as far as to create a web page about your promotion, and then create a link that you can place on other websites. Collect email addresses from your customers and send them your promotional offers. Other than a few moments of your time, this is a great way to advertise without spending a cent.

Step 11

Raise awareness inside and outside of the Internet. Use a variety of promotions to strengthen people's interest, such as drawings, coupons and discounts. Advertising in the real world will help if you can afford it within your budget!

Tips for Successful Social Media Marketing Business:

Step 1

Listening: Growing your Ears

In online world, the tool for listening is called a newsreader or a news aggregator. This type of software allows you to understand the conversation going out in the web.

Google Reader, which is one of the easiest to use, has just recently shut down but some marketing community has just recently recommended a list of feed readers as a replacement.

What should you listen to? The answer depends on how you intend to use the tool; however, if you are a part of a business or company space, here’s what to think:

• Ego search building. Free tools like Technorati, SocialMention, Google Alerts, and TweetDeck will help socially monitor your brand. Use them to build a search on your company’s name, product names, key employees’ names, and so forth.
  
  
• Build the same for your competitors.
  
  
• Find niche blogs and community.
  
  
• Find all the authority blogs and community that fit your industry and niche, and subscribe to them. This will help you get the trending topics on your niche easily.
  
  
• Find tangential categories. This is simple. If you’re in software niche, subscribe to an art of marketing blog. If you’re in marketing and PR, subscribe to an economy blog. There are several advanced listening tools that take the data you receive and will help you make a better sense of it.

Step 2

Speaking: Developing your Voice

Blogs, video, podcasts, Twitter, and tons of tools exist for speaking. Some of you might already use some of these tools that you’re comfortable with and prefer. Here are some ideas about how your voice can be heard further.

• Use Facebook and other social networks to point people toward your primary media by posting updates and news about your company. Find other people or businesses that share the same media and do an outreach. Offer media that their audience might like as well.
  
  
• Reach people with your conversation by putting the URL of your media on your e-mail signature and business cards.
  
  
• Use FeedBurner to improve your RSS feed since it provides more features and enhancements than a built-in RSS feed.
  
  
• Create and integrate list building through e-mail. Create newsletter opt-ins and encourage your audience to subscribe. Reach them through e-mail and tell them your latest updates that will interest them. MailChimp offers easy-to-use and free account for a certain amount of subscribers.
  
  
• Make sure your website and all of the media you have point back to you so that people know who you are, where you are, what are you up to, how to reach you, and what you are all about.

Step 3

Rich Media: Starter Pack

Depending on what you use, whether it is PC or Mac, the price points difference between what you wish to have and the goal you have set. Below is a good starter pack that I recommend for making video and audio podcasts for both PC and Mac.

• Audio. For both PC and Mac, you can use Audacity. It is a free, easy-to-use, and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. For Mac, GarageBand is great and I’ve seen lots of people who used it. BlogTalkRadio is also great solution that you can use without hardware.
  
  
• Video. You can use the plain iMovie for Mac and Windows Movie Maker on a PC. Final Cut Pro and Express versions are handy for filmmakers and those people who want to make a new model.
  
  
• Video Hosting. You have many choices on this category. There’s YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Wistia, and more. Make sure to read each platform’s terms of service to understand if they are a good choice for you.
  
  
• Live Video. Services like Live Video, Ustream, YouNow, and Paltalk offer different opportunities and interesting experiences.

Step 4

Community: The Social Platforms

In this list, I’ll just mention a few of the social media tools that we’re using and definitely will not include every social network and media tools.

• Facebook. Most of the entrepreneurs and businesses use Facebook to attract new visitors, build awareness, get customer support, do advertising targeting, and more. A social utility that connects people, it allows members to keep up with friends, upload photos, and share links and videos.
  
  
• Twitter. Social networking and microblogging service that utilizes instant messaging, SMS, or a web interface. Not everyone might be there but there are more people on Twitter than FriendFeed and Plurk.
  
  
• LinkedIn. This is a networking tool to find connections to recommended job candidates, industry experts, and business partners. It allows registered users to maintain a list of contact details of people they know and trust in business. The change in design and the status stream made it more interesting and it is currently the top in social networking sites for business.
  
  
• Pinterest. This is an interesting online pin board: a place where you can post collections of things you love and follow collections created by people with great taste. In case you need more, you might want to check Flickr, SmugMug, and Gentlemint, which are also great for photo sharing and we’re also using them.
  
  
• YouTube. YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag, and share your videos worldwide! We’re also sharing on Vimeo and Dailymotion.

Reference

• How to Start a Successful Social Media Marketing Business