Social media marketing is based purely on informative and relevant content that is provided to the target audience, creating top-of-mind awareness of your brand, prompting word-of-mouth publicity and connection-based recommendations of your website and social network profiles.

Let me put it this way, no one can talk about your business like you can. You have passion and enthusiasm about what you do more than other people. If this wasn’t true, you would not have gone into business doing it. Doing what you do, you have acquired some expertise. There is relevant information in that expertise that your current and prospective customers are interested in learning. That information is the foundation of the content mentioned in the first paragraph above.

What you are going to do is use this information to attract the attention of your audience. The stuff your customers or prospects are interested in – you are going to write about it in a weblog. In other words, you’re going to blog about it and then you’re going to use other social networks to direct people to your blog. In a nut shell – that’s it! That is what’s behind a social media campaign.
The whole premise sounds simple because it is. But I’m not saying it’s easy. You can certainly grab someone’s attention but to keep them coming back for more takes effort. Building trust enough to buy your products or use your services takes effort. To get a follower to recommend you online takes effort.

The content needs to be relevant, informative, well written and interesting. It doesn’t have to be all business. Fun facts, history, current events and what’s happening in the community can all be blended in with your company’s core content to form a body of information that keeps people coming back.

Social media is not a public address system, it’s a forum for communication. “Listening” with social media gives you valuable insight into the thoughts and needs of your audience, their opinion of your industry and even your business itself. Engaging your followers gives you a way to address problems and concerns, it keeps them coming back and it helps you to build a relationship with many people who then become advocates for your business.

There will be a learning curve becoming proficient with the tools of social media. Facebook, Twitter, blogging platforms, Linked In, Foursquare and others provide powerful means to reaching a vast audience making the time and effort required to master them
worthwhile.

A social media campaign like this positions your company in a very positive light. You are not only seen as an expert in your field but as an expert willing to share the company’s expertise with the community. That kind of positioning leads to the kind of trust in a company that draws new customers. Helping to develop such a campaign is what this blog is about.