Social Media Marketing ? 6 Key Components for Success – Do You Know It?

Social Media Marketing is gaining popularity more and more recently. This is because business owners are more aware of the awesome benefits this marketing medium offers when it comes to driving traffic to your site. In comparison to the conventional way of marketing where its one way communication from seller to prospects telling them about the benefits of using their products, social media marketing is about connecting, which makes it more personal, intimate and real. Social network marketing is more about helping others succeed, not selling your agenda.

Some of the more popular and well populated Social Media sites are:

Myspace.com

Facebook.com

Linkedin.com

Twitter.com

Bebo.com

Friendster.com

Hi5.com

.

I have created this guide to assist you in launching an effective social media marketing strategy to drive traffic to your website. What we are going to go through are 6 key components that you must have in your strategy so that you can create a powerful and effective Social Media Marketing campaign.

Let’s begin.

Sign Up for Free Accounts

Choose one or a few social media sites that you want to begin with and sign up for a free account. Fill up your profile as completely as possible. Once you have created your accounts at your chosen sites and filled up your profile fully, you are ready to begin networking and connecting with your people

Component 1: Your people

Social media sites consist of millions people and with all sorts of interests. Tapping into this pool of hundreds of millions of daily users worldwide can assist in expanding your presence globally.

What you need to do is seek out and join, or, create your own groups, blogs, pages and forums around your specific topic or niche. This will allow you to be connected to a highly targeted audience base.

Component 2: Relationship Building – Offer valuable Opinions & Info for Free

Social Media Marketing gives you an opportunity to be in service to people. You will be in a position to help them with their challenges and assist them in answering their questions. So do it! This action builds your online reputation as an expert and a giving person. By offering quality info for free and going out of your way to help them solve their troubles you will connect with your audience at a more real and intimate level. The more you give, the more you get back.

Component 3: Quality Conversations – Connecting Through Blogs, Pictures, Updates and Videos

By connecting to an audience that is highly targeted, your quality of communication will be higher due to the similar interests and concerns. I suggest you really listen to their concerns and what they want, so that, you can better serve them in the future. This quality communication builds relationships and trust faster online than almost anything else between you and your audience. Also, make your Social Media site personal so that these people get to see your profile, your picture and videos, which will get them to know you and like you even more.

Component 4: Do it Regularly & Consistently

The social profiles that come up highest on the search engines are the ones who are most active. So make it a point to contribute regularly and consistently. Plus, what happens by being consistent is that you will also give the unspoken message to your people that you can be counted on and you are in it with them for the long haul.

Component 5: Awareness of the benefits!

The biggest mistake beginners make is forgetting what’s in it for themselves in executing this strategy. And then they quit or they don’t give 100% to it after awhile. Remember, Social Media is cost-effective marketing! You can use LinkedIn to send the message that you are looking for new employees and use Twitter to send out quick messages about upcoming promotions. By being connected in social medias effectively, you show your clientele that you are transparent, authentic, up-to-date and most of all, you are a real person!

Component 6: Your Goal

Being known as an expert in your field and building strong relationships with your people is not in itself the end result you are looking for. You’ve got to keep in mind the goal you are actually looking for is to drive traffic from this site to your main website so that your main website can convert them into being your clients. You need to do this by offering them a compelling enough reason to go to your site. You already have a relationship with them, and have listened to their concerns. You know what they want, so offer a more detailed and in depth solution to their challenge that can only be accessed through your website. Then ask them to go there.

Naturally, I have given you an overly simplified version of launching a Social Media Marketing strategy, but it is enough to get you started. Good luck.