Using Social Media - The Secrets To Long Term Marketing Success

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You've heard it before, the latest buzz word on the internet is social media. There's Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and hundreds of others to choose from shivangi joshi. Most online marketers are using them and you need to jump on the bandwagon, but how do you know which one to choose from with such a vast choice, and how can you possibly cover all the social websites that are out there?

Well, here's some good news for you. You don't need to. All these sites are the same.

It doesn't matter what platform you're using they all have the same guiding principles behind them, and you need to only concentrate on a few to get a foothold into your chosen market.

Here's a list of three guiding principles you can apply when using social media for any social media site. Follow these principles and the only thing you need to do is become familiar with the mechanics of each site

Planning

For starters you need to plan what your message is or what information you want to give to people. One of the best ways to do this is to check out what your competitors are doing. Most social media sites especially Facebook and twitter have a set of tools you can use to see what people are talking about. You then need to put your slant on what you find and you can create endless content.

You need to plan the frequency of your posts. One of the most crucial parts of any social media platform is being consistent, so it doesn't matter if you post once a day, 5 times a day or twice a week, as long as you're consistent and your followers know what to expect then people will engage with you. Once you know the frequency you want to post then you need to schedule your messages.

Once again there are a numerous tools that enable you to schedule posts for days or months ahead. You just lead to load up your content and it will post even while you're asleep. Several websites worth checking our are hootsuite.com, SocialOomph.com and ping.fm. All offer free software and are excellent for scheduling posts to more than one social media site.

Interaction

The key to using social media is being social. You need to interact with your followers. It doesn't mean you need to be sitting in front of your computer rabidly replying to posts as people make them. Rather you need to spend about half an hour a day just answering what people are asking, or contributing your opinion to any discussions. It's all about having a dialog with your followers and listening to what they have to say. This also gives you excellent information on what sort of things your market is interested in.

Be Yourself.

The key to becoming successful with social media marketing is to have some kind of connection with your followers. Just be yourself as people are mainly looking to be social and have a two way conversation with you. You should also look at other social media sites in your niche and join in conversations with those sites, once again to give you an insight into the pulse of your market.

As you can see when you're using social media for marketing purposes, the only difference between any of the hundreds of social media sites is the site itself. The method you go about engaging and interacting with your followers, friends, fans, whatever you want to call them is exactly the same. Always remember the best way to attract followers is by providing content that people are looking for.