SOS Marketing, LLC.

Want to know what not to do on social media platforms? Below are few points to keep in mind if you are in charge of your brand’s social media campaign.

Use your Twitter profile and Facebook fan page to push out marketing messages
Social media thrive on conversation and engagement. Brands that don’t engage with followers and offer content of value will not succeed with their social media campaign. Implement a content strategy that will help to determine what type of content you will publish on your social networks. Having a well-thought through strategy is key to the success of a social media campaign.

Link your Facebook and Twitter account and never look at your Twitter profile again
This point ties in with the previous point. Social media is not ‘easy’. By duplicating the same content on your social profiles, especially on Facebook and Twitter, you will annoy those who follow you on both networks. It takes time to build up a follower and fan base and even more time to engage with these fans and followers. Brands that see social media as a short-term solution to promote a certain product will fail miserably at social media.

Link to your own work only
This tie in with the content strategy. Brands should not only link to their own website and work. When creating your content strategy, think about your target audience‘s other interests and include content relevant to these interests. It is easy to pick up what type of content your fans and followers enjoy by looking at the number of comments on a status update (on a fan page) or the number of retweets (on Twitter) pertaining to a certain subject matter.

Tweet excessively
Social media might be freely available but that is not an excuse to exploit it. If you’re treating your social prolife like an instant messenger service, you’re doing it incorrectly. In this day and age, there is an excessive amount of online ‘noise’, and thus when it comes to online media, the consumer is in charge. If you don’t produce content of value, you will be “un-followed” or lose fans.

Post updates without re-reading or thinking about them
A brand’s social media ambassador should know the brand’s voice and tonality inside-out. The ambassador should also be attentive to detail. Thus, it is important to remember that when tweeting under a brand name, it’s best to keep your opinions about politics, religion and so forth to yourself.

Pick a fight on a social network
Never, ever pick a fight with a fan or follower on a social media platform, or anywhere for that matter. If someone makes an accusation or false statement, rather send a message directly to them (“@” them) or comment on the update to obtain their contact details (such as an email address or phone number) and sort the issue out offline.

The above points are a few of the things one should not do when engaging with a customer base via a social media platform. If you would like to find out if you’re going in the right direction with your social media strategy, email us and we’ll conduct a social media audit to highlight areas that can be improved upon to enhance your strategy.

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About the Author:
AlterSage, a full service online marketing agency, offers tailored online marketing solutions that achieve targeted exposure for your website. Goal focussed and driven by return on investment, services include search engine optimisation, pay per click advertising, web design and development, persuasive web copywriting, brand building, conversion analysis and many more.
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These six steps were born out of common frustrations I hear from people about understanding how to market online.

Does this sound familiar? I know I need to figure out all of this social media stuff, but it’s all piecemeal now and I just don’t know where to start!”

You may have noticed how some small business owners seem to attract clients and customers online almost effortlessly–while others struggle to keep their business afloat. The reason is that they are following a proven business model to market their business.

The six steps outlined here not only incorporate that proven model, but show you how you can supercharge it by adding social media tools and techniques–leading to more clients, customers and sales.

Without further ado…

Step 1: Understanding what social media is and the benefits of using it.

It was important to me to make this first step the foundation of the entire system. Social media marketing is not “hard selling.”  It’s businesses having conversations in the online communities where their prospective clients and customers hang out. Why is this so beneficial? In a nutshell, it’s a no-cost way to connect with your customer or client base, establish expertise, drive traffic to your website, and communicate your value.

Step 2: Get a blog.

Think of your blog as your social home base. You can be out utilizing all of the social

media platforms in the world, but if you don’t have anywhere to send your friends and followers to outside of those platforms, your efforts will be in vain. Blogs are ideal because they tend to rank higher in the search engines and help foster a sense of community around your business.

Step 3: Build your social media profiles.

You don’t need to have a presence on every social site under the sun! There are only a few sites that I encourage most business owners to have a presence on: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You may find that some of these are not a good fit for you while others are. That’s ok! Know that if it is working for you, then you should continue using it. These sites are simply the ones that my clients and I have had the most success with and the ones I feel are a good representation of the social media landscape.

Step 4: Make your blog social-media friendly.

Having a blog is a great step in the right direction if you are looking for ways to dive into social media. However, there is a lot more that you can do once you’ve got your blog up and running. You can think of your blog as a hub connecting all of your social media activities–and you’ll want to encourage visitors to interact with you socially in as many ways as possible. Some of the ways you can do that include badges, buttons, widgets, an RSS icon, commenting tools such as Disqus, and of course–good, share-friendly content.

Step 5: Building relationships with your target market.

Ok, you have at least one or two social media profiles set up and you’re ready to rock–

but what now? The next step is to start using social media as a way to facilitate relationships with people who might potentially become your clients or customers or your strategic alliances. It’s easy to get caught up in all of the technical details involved in social media, but you want to remember that at its heart, it’s really all about people.

Step 6: Show me the money: turning friends and followers into clients and customers.

Twitter and Facebook are not the only game in town. To achieve the best results, you will want to have a varied mix of marketing tools in play all at once. Online, much of your job centers on driving traffic to your site so that prospective clients or customers can find out more. One of the best ways to increase the chances that someone will eventually buy from you is to build an email list. Essentially, you want to have a way to capture a person’s email address and name so that you may keep in touch with them, build trust, and make offers in the future.

Social media is only one way to drive traffic and build your list. The idea is to be a “well-rounded” marketer. Using sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube along with the other online marketing strategies will maximize your results—and more traffic, more subscribers, more clients, more sales and more money will certainly follow.

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About the Author:
Christine Gallagher, MLS, MSIS, founder of CommunicateValue.com, teaches small business owners and professionals how to conquer the overwhelming aspects of online and social media marketing to increase business and maximize profits. For FREE tips on how to build profitable relationships, leverage technology and create your own successful online business, visit http://CommunicateValue.com
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Just when I thought it was bad – it got worse.

We all know how annoying all the Twitter ‘Thanks for following’ DMs are, right?  Mine have become downright out of control these days.  I miss my friends DMs thanks to all the SPAM in my DM column. Sigh. It’s worse than email because I can’t block Tweets.

I wouldn’t mind the DMs so much if they really were thanking me and/or offering something valuable. But we know that’s not true either.  It’s a rare DM that offers anything other than ‘Follow me on FB’, ‘Get 1,000 followers in under 60 seconds’, ‘Use my MLM and you’ll be a millionaire tomorrow’. Blah Blah.

Recently I’ve been paying a bit more attention to those pesky DMs. I wanted to see if anyone had a clue about an effective use of Direct Messages in response to Follows.  I’m sad to say – I haven’t found a single one yet that made me jump up and scream “Yes!!”

I did find one yesterday that made me scream “NO!” more loudly than usual.  The Tweep has over 32,000 Followers so you’d think he’d know better.  Obviously not.

Here’s the DM…with a few changes to protect the guilty.

I’m honored for the follow! I create sustainable business systems. Can I help? See my site: http://XXX.com   (NO DM’s pls)

No DMs Please? Excuse me Mr. Tweep, I must be confused. Didn’t you just DM me to sell your services?  Didn’t you just take my time, invade my space, without asking permission?  And now you’re telling me you’re too busy to accept a DM back from me?

You gotta be kidding me.

I am amazed at the Power of Twitter and other Social Media platforms to network with like-minded folks.  ISM is a fabulous tool when used appropriately.

I’m also continuously shocked at the seeming lack of just plain common sense (or maybe in this case it’s common courtesy) from folks on social media – especially Twitter.

So, here are a few little clues for anyone  using Twitter.  Forget the DMs, stop annoying people and just be yourself. Let your voice shine through your Tweets, share your value freely and let people see why they want to be a Follower of you and your  thoughts. That’s the key to creating a loyal SM following – on any of the platforms.

• Don’t send blind, pointless DMs.
• Stop Spamming with your promises of thousands of followers.
• Forget the millionaire overnight promo and most of all…

Don’t insult people by telling them your time is more valuable than theirs.

In over 20 years as a strategic consultant ‘ve led more than 100 successful client engagements. I help companies grow by creating market strategies, redefining companies and products, launching these same companies and powering successful sales and marketing endeavors. My clients tell me I have a unique ability to understand technology and pinpoint its value – and then deliver a go-to-market strategy that works.

I’m currently putting the finishing touches on my book, Defying Gravity, available fall of 2010.

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