Developing a social media strategy is a tedious task. It doesn’t necessarily involve a few social networking sites and eventual posting of things on the web page thinking people are taking in everything. In today’s world, thinking unique always helps a company or a firm to go up the rungs of popularity. And to top it, the internet and technology have changed the way we look at things and the way we think and would want to execute things. Therefore, it’s always advised to first form a proper strategy for the social media marketing taking into consideration yours goals and needs that have to be achieved. Once a plan is laid, it’s always easier to start implementing it.

Determine your objectives

The first and the foremost issue would be to ask yourself as to what do you want to achieve? How many people do you want to reach out to? Who would do the financing? Should you do it in a phased manner or is it a one-time strategy? Are the goals short termed or long termed?
All these questions have to be answered first and only then you can proceed to the next step.

Research! (The only way to figure out a solution)

Find information about things and compile them in a proper way. Check the internet tools on the internet to see which one suits your needs completely. Ask people what they would want. Make a survey and see what you find in the results.

Plan out! (Think out of the box!)

The next step would be to plan your strategy and eventually implementing the same in whichever way needed. See what you can do with new technology. Smart phones are used by every other person nowadays. See if you can go mobile and spread your message in a more subtle way. There are other ways on the internet like the social networking sites and other relationship building sites.

You can also use video blogging sites or any video uploading website to post a video and urging people to watch it and then eventually share it. This is a form of marketing called viral marketing. This wouldn’t cost you a penny if you can do it right.

Connect! (With your audience)

It would all depend on how well you planned out everything. Now go public and see what they think on the larger platform. You’ll get positive and negative views, but it your choice if you want to change the negative mindset of the people by trying to understand what they want and trying to accommodate their issues, and eventually bring in a few amends. People watch and they judge you by what they see. Therefore, you should know how to talk with your audience.

Keep ONE Identity!

It’s easy nowadays to get confused with different names of the same company. And this is what leads to audience losing interest in what you have to offer. Always remember to have one identity on the social networking scenario to avoid such confusion.

After connecting, ReConnect!

Customers are your sole agenda. Therefore, you should always remember that you are the one who should be following up with them and communicate. Make yourself crystal clear. Make your customers feel they are heard. Make them feel important. That is how they’ll eventually respond back effectively.

Lastly, the most important thing about social media marketing is, understanding the people you want the market your product with. If you know the people, you would obviously get to know how such people respond. This would give you an insight into how your strategy should be and what tools should you use to achieve your goals.

About the author: Brianne is a blogger by profession. She loves writing on technology. Beside this she is fond of gadgets. Recently an article on esata vs usb attracted her attention. These days she is busy in writing an article on eboard for her blog.

Writing exclusively for YHP, Brian Hughes, CEO of KILTR, shares the secrets of successfully growing an online community…

Know your niche – It may seem obvious, but it’s important that you know exactly the community of users that you’re looking to attract – and how to reach them. Take the time to identify key online influencers (e.g. bloggers and niche media channels) among your target community and try to get them onside at the earliest opportunity. This will ensure that your initial marketing activity is focused and cost-effective in driving up membership.

Take it from the top – In the age of LinkedIn and Facebook, you need to convince potential community members that it’s worth their while to sign-up to yet another social network. Be sure that you can explain your proposition clearly and succinctly.

When you are at the coalface of an organisation, it can become difficult to offer a precise description of the business without over-loading the summary with confusing details and sidenotes. If you can’t come up with a one-sentence summary of what your community is and what it does, get help from a communications professional.

It’s all about Content – Online networks devour content at an incredible rate so, where possible, find ways to attract external content producers to your community. Every day thousands of media outlets, industry commentators, bloggers and freelance producers are distributing content that your community would be interested in. Convince as many as possible that your community is a good place for them to share their content and promote their own offerings.

Respond, respond, respond – If you successfully attract members, it’s vital that you respond to any queries or comments about the community quickly and professionally. If you look after your members, they will spread the word and the community will grow. If you take too long to respond to your community, however, they will abandon you, never to return and, what’s more, they will share their negative experience of your community among their contacts.

Keep it coming – It’s important for all online communities to continuously evolve in line with the needs and wishes of their membership. Keep members coming back for more by providing new content, new features, new functionality on a continuous basis.

Roll with it – Having established an online community, the way that community members then choose to use the platform will sometimes surprise you and, perhaps, lead you in a direction you hadn’t considered before. Keep an eye on trends within user behaviour and adjust your strategy and/or offering accordingly.

The Human Factor – Don’t forget that an online community, however large it may become, is simply a collection of individual human beings who, having joined your community, will react in a human, emotional way to any changes that you choose to make. Try to imagine how an individual member of your community – rather than the community as a whole – will respond to the introduction of new functionality or changes to your existing set-up. Don’t be afraid to ask yourself, “Would I like this?” rather than “Would the community like this?” and be brave enough to trust your own instincts.

Speak up – Raising awareness of your new online community is vital. Get comfortable with the idea of being a spokesperson for your community. This means actively networking as well as embracing other nerve-wracking activities such as making presentations and speaking to journalists – if you want your online community to grow, it’s part of the deal whether you’re shy or not!

Brian Hughes is the CEO of KILTR, a professional social network for everyone with an interest in Scotland.

Search Engine Optimization is the way for businesses to be found online. Search engines use complex algorithms to determine what websites should correspond to the search queries users type in. Cracking the search engine code is extremely difficult, however, the whole idea is that the most relevant website always wins. If a company can become the most relevant website in its field, then it doesn’t really need to crack the code. Here are some powerful tips to help boost a company’s website’s relevancy.

Social Media & Buzz Generating

Social media/online marketing (finding an online/social presence and also branding a name for your company through marketing) provides a business with an approachable voice. It’s difficult for a company to get conversation going on a website. But conversation is easily created on a social media platform. In fact, that’s the point of social media. In respect to Search Engine Optimization, social media helps a company extend its reach. By reaching out and eventually funneling users to their sites, companies are carving out a bigger presence for themselves on the Internet. Social media also creates buzz. You want your brand to be discussed as many times as possible across the Internet.

Community Building & Traffic

Connecting directly to other, relevant places is extremely beneficial for Search Engine Optimization. When you link to powerful places on the web, then you get some kickback from their success. The deals website Tanga.com is a good example. They have an affiliate program. If users promote and link to Tanga, then they can benefit from Tanga’s page ranking as a deals and online coupon website. Users should also be interested in guest posts. If a blog owner gets to post somewhere else then they will surely put a link on their blog. This creates a bridge between the two sites and they can share relevant traffic. Having a popular site will boost your reputation with search engines and help your page’s ranking.

Clout Creation & Focus

No website can be relevant for everything. It’s necessary to focus your content so that a search engine can easily identify how to rank it for certain topics. Instead of a myriad of words, make sure you limit your work to a few themes. If your goal is to show-up when someone searches for “pocket watches” then topics surrounding pocket watches, links to pocket watch-relevant websites and the phrase “pocket watches” should all appear on your site very frequently. Use social media and strategic linking to further build your reputation as an expert on your subject matter.

Putting a lot of energy in one direction should help your website to drift from the pack as an authority on the topic. If a particular page seems to be the hub for all things “hub caps” then it will turn up at the top of the page when someone searches “hub caps.” It can sometimes seem repetitive to continually push the same idea, but brand consistency will only help your reputation as an expert.

Combining all three of these techniques will help a business to harness a relevant website. If a business chooses what it wants to rank for, and really pursues becoming an authority in that niche, then it can certainly boost the company’s ranking on search engines. There are also many SEO firms that can provide this service.

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Written by Holly Watson

This is a guest post from Holly Watson

As a freelance writer, I built my business and clientele from the ground up. Most aspiring entrepreneurs are familiar with this time-consuming and wearisome process. How do you market yourself in such a way that you can earn a living without having to walk around wearing a sandwich board or shamelessly passing your resume out to strangers on the street?

Quick survey: How many of you have an account on a social networking site? My guess would be more than 90% of readers have at least one account, either on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or a similar site. In fact, a requirement during the final semester of my senior year in college was to create a LinkedIn profile; that college professors would (essentially) make this a requirement for graduation is indicative of the importance social media had gained over the years.

When I started my own business, I had the problem of not having a personal brand. No one knew me or the quality of my work. All of the sites I visited for advice and tips were frustratingly vague. Some said to offer my work for free and rely on word-of-mouth, while others advocated advertising and endless dissemination of my portfolio and resume.

On the advice of a former classmate, I opened a deviantART page and posted a lot of my work there. Very few people visited my page, however, because you have to have an account in order to view others’ work. This site is for artists who want to post their work, and if potential clients don’t fit into that category – and many don’t –it is unlikely they will go to the trouble of opening an account to view writing samples.

I also started a public blog and posted my work there, and several people started following my posts and offering feedback on my writing. However, none of my readers were in need of my services. While I valued the input and encouragement I received in this forum, I still felt as if I was nowhere closer to my goal than I had been when I started.

I opened a Twitter account and start sending out tweets about my business: services offered, credentials, etc. I started following random people, and I got a few writing contracts this way. I charged low prices in exchange for my customers’ promise to recommend me to their friends, colleagues, etc., but this only yielded a couple of additional writing gigs.

My next step was to open a Facebook page specifically for my business. In the biography section, I posted a brief version of my resume. I planned to post writing samples as notes, but business pages don’t offer that option. However, I had a separate (regular) page as administrator, and I not only posted writing samples there, but linked both pages.

Facebook offers advertising for businesses, as well. Businesses can choose between Pay Per Click (CPC), which only charges when someone clicks on the ad; and Pay Per Impression (CPM), which charges for every 1,000 times that the ad is viewed, regardless of whether it is clicked on or not. Facebook recommends CPM “to increase brand, product or service awareness” and CPC “to drive online conversions through their ads (e.g. sales of t-shirts or subscribers to a newsletter).”

Facebook begins the advertising process with bidding for what the advertiser is willing to pay. Once a price is settled upon, a daily budget, daily spend limit (which increases with every successful payment, regardless of daily budget), and a lifetime budget are set. You choose the target demographic, and Facebook offers viewers of your ad the choice to “Like” it or click on it for additional information, or to dismiss it as either uninteresting, misleading, sexually explicit, against their views, offensive, repetitive, or “other” (at which time you type your reason); this narrows your pool of potential clients.

Google recently launched its own social networking site, Google Plus. While this site does not yet offer business pages, Google offers AdWords and AdSense. AdWords offers both CPC and CPM options, and requires a $5 start-up fee; advertisers choose keywords, and the ad is displayed alongside relevant Google searches. AdSense places advertisements on participating websites, and pays the website owner every time an ad is clicked. Because these websites already target a specific audience, this increases the effectiveness of the ad.

Due to my limited finances, I opted against advertising, although I will undoubtedly revisit this decision at a later time. My work was posted on deviantART, my personal blog, Twitter, and Facebook. My final step was to tie all of these sites together by updating my LinkedIn profile. Whereas I initially left many fields blank, I added links to all of my sites, a copy of my resume, and a professional-looking photo.

I immediately noticed increased traffic to all of my sites. My personal blog, which had not yielded much success before then, started gaining readers, and I revamped it to be more of an Internet marketing blog, in which I not only posted writing samples and my resume, but also writing and marketing tips and tricks that I learned while researching the branding and marketing process. My Facebook page slowly gained fans.

It’s been six months since I started the branding process, and my client list is slowly growing. I still offer reduced rates to some clients in exchange for word-of-mouth advertising and referrals, but I am now able to fully support myself with my writing, thanks to my clever use of social media. Social media is here to stay, so why not use it to your advantage?