How to focus your marketing.

Social media is one of the newest ways to market your business on the internet. However, many site owners simply don’t take advantage of social media, either because they don’t know how to do it or because they don’t realize how much it could benefit their business. Don’t fall into that trap! Here are some ways you can use social media to market your business and increase your bottom line.

1. Find out which sites your target market is going to. If your target market is suburban moms in their 30s, they can use Facebook. Conversely, if your market is teens, they may use Tumblr instead. Social media won’t help you at all if you don’t keep your focus on your target market.

2. Post useful content on your websites. You can only be successful in marketing when potential visitors visit your site. By posting relevant content, you encourage people to learn more about you. Even better, they can share your link almost instantly with everyone on your network. You are definitely going to increase traffic by posting useful content.

3. Have a sense of integrity. That means it’s not a good idea to be spam. Don’t collect contacts just to spam them with your product links. Not only is he incredibly rude, but you put yourself in his shoes; How often do you respond to someone who spams you?

4. Stay focused. It’s all too easy to fall for anecdotal updates that have no connection to the topic you’re trying to market. Save the stories about your cat and your favorite coffee for your personal social profiles.

5. Don’t go for the hard sell. Social media is not the same as other marketing methods. You can still encourage people to buy the things they need, but using the regular hard sell is frowned upon and makes you easily ignored. Use a softer selling approach that focuses on value.

6. Be different. Social sites are a great place to get creative. Everything is so easy to share that anything you do that is unusual or different is more likely to be shared and discussed by many people. Create a viral video or contest and watch your site visitors increase tenfold!

7. Don’t be a bother. You may want to post something every hour while you see if someone visits your site. Do not do that. Stick to 2-3 posts in a day unless you are responding directly to people. Feel free to interact and reply to others, but don’t start so many posts that people mentally block them.

8. Keep the brand. Don’t forget to customize your media profiles to be consistent with your website and other promotional materials. Failing to do this can cause confusion and appear poor quality.

Social media is a smart addition to any internet marketing plan. Use these tips and you will see results.