Social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIN are not substitutes for a solid and informative website, but a complementary set of online resources assisting with branding you, the services you offer, and referring people back to your website. Social media marketing rarely leads to instant conversions or sales; consider that you are planting seeds that you will be able to harvest in the future. The information you share online should allow people to understand who you are and what you do so that when the time comes that the service you offer is needed, you and your business will be at the top of their mind and among the first they contact.

Social media marketing does take time and effort, and because it is unlike all other traditional marketing, it requires a completely different mindset for it to be successful. Traditional marketing involves a lot of dominating, pushing, loud “me, me, me” tactics, whereas Social media marketing is merely just connecting with others, sharing information as an authoritative speaker, creating relationships of mutual benefit, and word of mouth among other things. It is a process of long informative and authoritative details branding your services and your company.

Among the numerous social media platforms available, knowing which to choose and spend time and resources on may be a challenge. Each social media service has its strengths and depending on what type of services you offer, there will be different ways to participate and limitless opportunities to make an online presence and contribute. Results of a successful social media strategy will provide you attention, links, and large masses of traffic.

Facebook, Twitter, hi5, MySpace, LinkedIN, YouTube…If you are puzzled where to start and how social media marketing may benefit you and your organization, feel free to give us a call. In addition to SEO and our other online marketing services, Netmark Essentials prides themselves as being knowledgeable social media marketing consultants, and has successfully helped many of their clients to establish a successful online presence in a wide variety of social media channels, and we would like to assist in your online success as well.  Just ask us about it!

A few of the more popular social bookmarking sites you can use to promote your website are MyBlogLog owned by Yahoo, Digg.com, Kaboodle, Shpinn, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon, Twitter, and Furl. A few of the lesser known are Claim ID and Open ID, Zimbio, business-planet.net, Blurpalicious, and Veryhotlinks. When using these sites a few simple things to keep in mind so that you do not get banned are:

• Be authentic – join the communities you are genuinely interested in. Make acquaintances you can relate to and give back to the community by submitting others content and giving them credit.
• Follow each social network's rules – Don’t abuse the sites or try to work around them. Your time and efforts will have better results than the “quick in and out”.
• Submit your most unique and relevant content page of your website. Others want to be informed, entertained or helped.
• No matter how tempting it is, don’t spam (self explanatory!)
• Don’t try to manage too many social media tools- this can give poor quality to your posts, comments, etc. Pick a few, and stick with them.

Remember that the whole reason for doing social media is to be involved. The more involved you are away from your website, the more people will come to know you and possibly what you have to offer. You slowly build credibility with everyone around you all the while building traffic and brand awareness.

Submitting to social bookmarking sites can be extremely effective for your link building campaign. It helps you to develop quality back links to your site while also driving relevant traffic. It can be very time consuming if you let it, but also enjoyable if you find sites that interest you. At the end it always seems to be well worth the effort.

In my previous days when I was heavily involved in real estate, I was always keeping on top of technology (I still do), and much of the research I found spoke highly of social media, and the infamous Facebook. I was aware of it''''s existence, and knew it was popular among the teen generation, but little did I know of it's huge following and awesome networking opportunities. So I jumped on board and created a profile, imported my email list and found many of my friends, family members, classmates, acquaintances already online. My younger sister teased me and "couldn't believe I joined Facebook." I think she just felt a bit awkward knowing that I would be able to see her comments, posts, and crazy pictures from that time forward.

Over time, I updated my profile, and I continued to update my status. I wanted to make sure that the people that I know, knew exactly what I did and why they should pick me. I also took advantage of the huge network, and searched out new connections to become a source of referrals and knowledge in the future. I found that Facebook was a fun and productive way to keep up with friends and family in my personal life, and a simple and easy solution to continue to meet new people for my professional career.

Facebook allows you to create different groups, and control what information is shared with the different groups. I currently have only two groups: personal and professional. People within my personal group can see my full profile, or at least the information that I have included. Contacts within my professional group can still see my basic contact information, status updates, posts, and more…but not necessarily have the ability to look at my photo albums, etc.

Facebook is definitely one of the leading social media applications available right now, and its fun and highly customizable. It even has somewhat of a professional look and feel to it, unlike the often funky and obnoxious MySpace and Hi5 like applications.

So how can a social media tool like Facebook benefit you, or your business? Jump online and give it a decent shot, update your information, search for new contacts, keep up with your friends, find and re-establish contact with friends and acquaintances that you haven't spoken to in ages, and much more. Use it to your advantage, post items about your job, what you do, offer your service…Create a page promoting your business. Facebook even offers PPC and Impression advertising with the opportunity to target your audience based on their likes, hobbies, age, status and more…all at a fraction of the cost of traditional PPC with the leading search providers.

So when you ask yourself, "Why?" or "What's In It For Me?," just take my suggestion and jump on board and give it a try. At a minimum you are bound to reconnect with old friends or family, and beyond that the opportunities for you and your business are limitless!

If you haven't done so yet – you need to check out our Social Media Marketing page.  Not only is Netmark one of the greatest social media marketers, but we often do consulting too!