5 Basic Steps to Social Media Marketing (SMM).

So you have decided that you want to utilize Social Media Marketing (SMM) to bolster your company's marketing reach but have little to no experience with Social Media sites... what to do? This blog will explore the benefits of SMM and give you 5 basic steps needed to get you started down the long but exciting road to SMM success.

First off, what is SMM?
Online marketing has jumped to the top of many company's marketing agendas in the past few years due to the explosion of social media sites. With a reach far greater than most other mediums readily available and a "barely-there" cost structure, SMM is the sexy cornerstone for most online marketing campaigns. The process, simply put, is the sharing of content (blogs, video, images, audiobooks etc) across vast online communities. SMM spans across an imeasurable amount of markets and is realized through numerous user-friendly website platforms. It can be a daunting task, but if it is executed effectively an SMM campaign can yield substantial results for you and your company.

There is no cookie-cutter approach to creating an effective SMM campaign, but listed below are 5 basic steps to help you get an effective SMM campaign off the ground.

The Steps!

Step 1 - Map Your Course
On any journey, you need a map, the SMM journey is no different. So take some time to map out how your are going to tackle your SMM campaign. Every good campaign should start with the basic step of identifying your target market, and how they interact with specific social media sites. You should understand which sites best hit your target market and focus on those sites as ground zero for your campaign. Most of you will want to stick to the larger, user-friendly sites like Facebook, Digg, Linkedin, StumbleUpon etc. With every new site you create a presence on, be sure to keep your profiles consistent both textually and visually. It is only through this consistency that you will start to solidify your online brand. Remember to be careful about how many social media sites you create a presence on, the more profiles you have to maintain the higher the likelihood of your campaign becoming sloppy and less cohesive.

Step 2 - Control Your Content
No matter how hard you work on your SMM campaign, if you dont have effective content you will not reach your goals. The trick to creating effective SMM content is to find the balance between having fresh content and having too much content. It is important that you dont let your content go stale, but be sure that you do not over saturate your profiles with walls of text and content. There is nothing more unattractive to potential customers than an intimidating amount of material on your profile. So keep your profile clean, fresh and simple. Remember that although blogs and textual content is great, rich content like videos and audiobooks/podcasts are even better.

Step 3 - Take Part
The beauty of social media is that it is a participatory function. So be sure to involve yourself. It is not enough to simply create a profile, add some content and hope that people find you. Get out there, add some friends, join in on conversations and exchange ideas with like minded individuals. It is through your participation that people will find you, and you will maximize your marketing power. For lack of a better cliche: The more you put in, the more you will get out.

Step 4 - Be a Sponge
The best part about advertising on the web is that it is constantly changing. So change with it. While you are involved with your SMM campaign you will be in tune with new trends, developments and marketing possibilities that are popping up all the time. So make sure you remain flexible, open minded and dont be scared to try out the new trends and see how they work within your camapign. If you can stay plugged into the constantly changing trends of social media you will undoubtedly be one step ahead of your competitors.

Step 5 - Embrace the Process
The final and most fundamental step of all is to relax and enjoy watching your company's online brand grow through SMM. Take pride in the fact that the maintenance of your profiles will directly effect your revenue. If you take pride in maintaining and updating your profiles, it will show, and people will notice. There is nothing worse than coming across a profile that has obviously been neglected, it shows a lack of professionalism and that reflects poorly on the entire brand. Keep in mind that SMM reaches a larger market segment than any other medium for little to no money, if you keep that in mind its almost impossible not to enjoy the process!

Good Luck!


Alex Arnold
Founder,
2AM Marketing
2AMCanada@gmail.com