Social Media Is The Marketing Power of YOU

By Luis Galarza - Internet Marketing.

A Beginners Guide To Social Media Marketing And The Effects Of The Power Of "YOU"!...

Picture by: Gary Koelling.

Before we get into how to use social media marketing, first of all you need to understand that of the heck is social media and why is becoming so important for any size business, online or offline to get involve in it. Web 2.0 which is the technology behind social media is more than just a fancy code word or lingo from the Internet, was the beginning to a new era of personal interaction, business transparency, and permission marketing, plus:

• Information distribution.
• Communication.
• Content interaction.
• Content creation.
• New Internet marketing strategies.
  
• Brand marketing.
• Buzz or viral marketing.
• Market authority.
• Credibility building.
• Team collaboration.
• Online reputation management.
• Journalism.
• Online content sharing.
• New laws of social ethics.
• New spam movements.
• New SEO strategies.
• New traffic generation tactics.
• Clever web innovations.
• And new money making markets and trends.
  

Please if I forgot any other benefit of social media please share it with us through the comment link above or bellow this post.



In Plain English.

This new communication medium is not other thing than the new way to create online content with easy to use publishing tools. This new Internet technology put the power of content on people "YOU", by helping you distribute, share, find new information that would it be hard or maybe impossible to discover without it.

In this new Internet you aren't just a reader anymore, you became an instant publisher...

Now social media marketing is the effective way of using web 2.0 tools to interact with potential customers and with net authorities that can help you spread the word about your company or product.

Here is a great video I found on YouTube that can help you understand this in plain English:



Hope this video gave you a clear "in plain English" explanation about how this new net evolution works.



The Power Tools.

One of the thing that make this sociology + technology era so useful and popular are the tools available to you, that can help you find, create, distribute, and share information in a very easy fashionable way. Some of those tools are:

1. Blogs services like Blogger or Wordpress.
   
2. Micro-blogging like Twitter.
   
3. Podcasting like BlogTalkRadio & Talkshoe.
   
4. Video sharing sites like YouTube and Revver.
5. Picture sharing sites like Flickr and Twitpic.
   
6. Social networks like Myspace or Facebook.
   
7. Social bookmarking like Digg or StumbleUpon.
   
8. Question and answer sites like Yahoo Answers.
   
9. Social commenting sites like Blerp.
10. Custom Social networks like Ning.
11. Content sites like Squidoo or Google Knol.
12. Content syndication technology like RSS and Atoms.
    
13. And much, much more...
    

There are tools that help you collaborate on a project, others let you share files and documents publicly or with a team. Also you can find tools that are targeted to professional and business use like Linkedin and PartnerUp.

Marketing That Works.

So, how can you make this new medium of communication work for your business? Is there a secret sauce for success? You may already heard many different marketers talking about the power of this medium, and how it can be use to make money online and send a lot of targeted web traffic to your blog or site. But...

The Fact is: "Traffic that comes from web 2.0 sites don't convert good. If you really want to make money online you need to focus on SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or SEM (Search Engine Marketing), which refers to PPC or pay-per-click advertising."

Now this doesn't mean that you need to stay away from using this new medium to generate quality leads for your business or product. You can easily use it to:


- Increase branding exposure.

- Generate extra traffic of pre-qualify prospects.

- Generate branding buzz.

- Build new business contacts.

- Connect with potential joint venture partners.

- Connect with potential link partners.

- Also you can have community authorities to recommend you to there audience.



This new medium can be really effective as soon you use the right strategies, which need to be focus on a specific goal. So, before jumping in and start creating a profile on every community network you can find, you need to have the answer for each of the next 2 questions.

1. What's your goal from the use of social media? Which is, what you really want to achieve from it. Then...

2. What strategies are you going to use to get to those goals?


After you answer those to questions, the next step is to write down a strategic marketing plan for each goal, this way your efforts will be focus on action steps that eventually will taking to your final goal. For example: If you want to use social bookmarking sites to gain exposure and one way back links to your site so you can increase your search ranking then you need to plan how you are going to bookmark your content, what type of sites are you going to share, which content will be better to bookmark and how many links per day are your going to share. All this and more needs to be in your action plan. Here are some bookmarking tips you can use right now.

To get unlimited advice about "Web 2.0 and social media for small business" visit the IE Club.

Recommended Resources.

- Social Influence For Dummies.
- Blogging To The Bank.

- Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business Online.

TIP: Implement the sites that you already know how to use first, then make a schedule of how many time per day, week, and month are you going to use them. Another thing I recommend beginners is to use automation tools that can make your job easier, if you don't know where to find them I will give you a complete list of tools by the end of this week.

To your success,

Luis Galarza, Internet Marketing Consultant In Massachusetts.

Blerp Me

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