Everything starts with a blog.

I get asked a lot what should I post on Twitter? when I get asked this I know that the asker is in doubt about the entire point of social media.

If you are in business, Blogs and social media are there to pay the rent period. As much as we all love to write and engage with people, the banks and building societies whom we all owe money to, would not really be so forthcoming if we said;

“Sorry no rent or mortgage money this month, but I’ve done you a lovely blog…look”

For me this is a living, and the very reason I, and many more people are taking to writing and becoming blog copywriters is to earn a crust.

There is a strategy for Social media marketing and there is in my eyes, only two types

One, if you are a celebrity and your fans want to know what you had for breakfast, or a Footballer and people want to know if you really did head-but some other player.

Two, and for the rest of us mere mortals people don’t care what you are up to, they want info and GOOD info. Social media (If you like conspiracy theories) was invented by students and completely sabotaged by business. Do you really think Facebook would be so popular without company pages?

Here is my successful Social Media strategy

1) Buy a decent keyword rich domain
2) Build a Word press blogsite
3) Intergrate your social media into it
4) Write consistent, interesting, heading centric, blogs for people with info and keep an eye on the top keywords
5) Post that to social media and bookmarking sites (and you need a good following)
6) Write a minimum of once a week
7) Write press releases to all the top sites regularly with a link back to you.
7) To make a living you will need half a dozen different blogs

Blogging for affiliates

You can either sell affiliate ads on your sites and you will need around 10,000 unique visitors a month bare minimum (That’s through Google analytics or 15,000-18,000 AWstats if you are using Hostgator) to make the current average of 1/100 uniques to click to your affiliate advertising. Then you must learn all about what you are selling and make sure it fits in with your blogs. You will have to invest heavily through online marketing avenues like Google and Facebook ads and give away gifts to get your following. Ah yes there are a plethora of sites promising this and that, get real! you would do well to remember that Google still rates the age of your site as a major factor when placing you on the search page. You will have a major battle on your hands if you are tackling a well populated arena like Insurance or computers, it can be done, but be ready to sacrifice looking at your children for the next three years!

Blogging for your own business

“Companies that blog have 55% more visitors than those who don’t” Hub spot

Use these blogs to write laterally about your business on a separate site to your usual commercial site, for example if you are an undertaker write about the life, achievements, and contribution to society of the people you inter. (Who says there isn’t a blog for every business?!) If you are Librarian do a book review blog. Everyone is interesting in some way. Then each blog you write has a call to action at the bottom of the article to say if you want this product or service, ‘go here’ with a link back to your main business site. This will endear you to Search engines like no other way can and quickly!

Many people are trying the internet now to find a way to work from home as the recession is biting hard everywhere, even well trained 40 year olds both sides of the pond are worried they will ever work again. A lot of UK business people are investing in online marketing courses to learn how to blog and have an online presence. Even the UK ISMM (Institute for Sales and Marketing management) have proffered that companies who are not using Social media marketing will be dead in 5 years! All I am saying is it must be done but look harder into it it’s a full time job like anything and there are so many people promising a silver bullet with SEO, just follow the strategy above, and you will be ok. it is like anything worth having you have to sacrifice time and effort into it.

If you literally do not have 2 hours spare a week to write a blog and you seek a company to do blogs for you, make sure they have a decent following on social media as in at least 1,000 on their Facebook page and 1,000 followers on twitter minimum! And have a look at their blogs.

Social media marketing nowadays can make or break your online success. With millions of people accessing their social media accounts every day, it has become the most effective avenue to get your message out there. Want to know how you can use this new marketing strategy to your advantage? Then here are the top 5 techniques that you can incorporate into your online marketing strategy today.

Have solid profiles of your brand on all platforms

The first thing that you need to do is build solid profiles of your brand or business of different social networks. There are tons of sites that you can choose from so sign up with social media sites that cater to your target market or audience. Make sure that your profiles have complete details, as well as interesting photos that will draw your target market in. if you have video clips and audio clips that are relevant to your brand, you should also upload those to your profile as well. Your social media profile should be easy to navigate so be sure to keep your links where users will be able to easily see them.

Update your accounts regularly

Once you have your profiles set on different social media sites, the next thing that you need to do is make sure that you update all your accounts regularly. Post updates at least 3 times a week for each account to ensure that you audience is in the loop. If you have new content on your main site, or you have news on discounts and freebie giveaways, it’s crucial that you post these updates on your social media sites as well. Posting updates doesn’t just make your brand more visible to more people, it also gives your audience the information they need.

Promote interaction

But your work doesn’t stop with just posting updates. You need to promote interaction as well. What sets social media marketing apart from other marketing techniques is that it encourages interaction between your audience and your brand. Your audience has the option to instantly share their thoughts about your brand, which gives you the chance to really know your target audience. You can start the ball rolling by asking questions and see where it takes you from there.

Look at the competition

if you’re still not getting the results the results that you want after playing the social media marketing game for awhile, then it’s time to cue in on what the other brands are doing. Marketing for it can be a bit challenging, especially if you’re still new at it. If you want to know how other brands work on their profiles, all you need to do is subscribe to their updates and take notes. You’ll learn a lot of things on making quality posts and encouraging interaction just by observing what they do.

Monitor your actions

Lastly, don’t forget to monitor your actions. Keep tabs on all your social media activities so that you know which techniques yield results. This way, it will be much easier for you to tweak your online marketing campaigns as you go along.