Business 101: What is Social Media Marketing & Why do I need it?

SMM (Social Media Marketing) is a huge arena of amazing tools that seem to grow and expand every moment. SMM is the hottest new way to market yourself and gain the much desired exposure to potential new clients. The amazing part of using SMM is the cost factor, SMM is virtually free to utilize, and it takes you world wide in a matter of minutes. Who would not want that kind of exposure?

SMM appears in a variety of forms from social networking sites to viral marketing sites.

Some of the common social networking sites include:
FaceBook (http://www.facebook.com/)
Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/)
LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/)
NING sites (http://www.ning.com/)

While the viral marketing sites are:
YouTube
Flickr
Google Video
JibJab
Kewego
Metacafe
Veoh

Then you have your Blog sites:
Blogger.com
WordPress
TypePad

The fourth area in the SMM platform is Internet Radio/Podcasts:
BlogTalkRadio
PodBean
Voice America Radio
iTunes
Podcast Alley

The final area we will touch on is Social Bookmarking or tagging:
http://www.digg.com/
http://www.delicious.com/
http://www.stumbleupon.com/
http://www.reddit.com/

Keep in mind I am only listing the top sites, there are many others that can be more specific to your niche market. The key is to begin to connect into each of these platforms offering advice, tips, quotes then the sale. Do not march into these social platforms with a hard sale, guaranteed they will “un-friend” or stop following you.

You want to utilize all of the various platforms for optimum exposure, do not find yourself sticking to one only or combining all together on one site. The key is exposure and linking on several sites, then you can upload/link your radio show & blog to your main website to drive more traffic to your home site, that is a whole different topic for later. To find out more and explore your options visit http://www.robinhardy.net/ or email at Robin@RobinHardy.net.