Social Monkey

The world of Social Media Marketing continues to grow, change and develop at an alarming rate.  This amazing infographic from Buddy Media shows just how complicated things are, so much so that they even missed off Pinterest!

Even those of us who work in and with social media find it a continuous challenge to keep up-to-date with changes and developments to ensure that we are making the most of platforms, tools and applications for ourselves and our clients.

If you want to start using social media for marketing your organisation this little guide might help to keep things simple:

Which platform?

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube are still in the lead when it comes to social media marketing.

Don’t spread yourself thinly, choose a couple of platforms to set-up and engage your organisation from.  Twitter is most effective for business-to-business marketing, as is LinkedIn.  Facebook is more effective for business-to-consumer marketing.  YouTube is only worth investing time in if you have the ability and drive to make and share good quality video content regularly.

To Blog or not to Blog?

Simple answer is YES!  Be it a blog that is integrated into your website (helps to push traffic), a WordPress blog or something simpler like tumblr.  Part of any social media marketing plan should be a content strategy and doing a weekly blog, or regularly sharing pictures or videos on a blog is the best way to do this.

Content Strategy

As with any effective marketing strategy, you need a structured plan for your social media content.  This will also help to stop you feeling that you have nothing to talk about (especially in the early days) and increase engagement.  See previuos post: The Importance of having a Social Media Strategy and Planned Content

Have fun and enjoy it!

This is SOCIAL media marketing!  It is not about pushing the same old, dry message week in week out.  TALK to your fans/followers, share their content and make new friends.  Social media marketing is all about engagement and sharing and in doing so you will have promoted yourself and what you do without even knowing it!