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It’s good for business and good for SEO so why don’t more businesses carry out social media marketing? Perhaps they don’t know where to start – so here is a back-to-basics on how to get your social media marketing off to a flying start.

1. FACEBOOK

No surprises that Facebook is the #1 for social media marketing. With an estimated half of users logged on at anyone time its no surprise its social media reach is like no other. They have also developed a range of easy-to-use plugins for your site with simple mechanics to make it easy for others to Like and Share your website and its content

2. TWITTER

Simple plug-ins will allow users to tweet about your site from your site, so the idea is to develop compelling website content rather than just build up 1000s of followers.  SEO friendly on page Twitter feeds allows you to update your home page content quickly, easily and regularly.

3. YouTube

We don’t need stats to prove the growth in consumption of online video – just think how your own online behaviour has changed over the years. For reasons explored elsewhere in the blogs, using YouTube can help smaller company’s achieve high Google rankings with well tagged, well described content rich video.

4. GOOGLE+1

Not to be confused with Google+, +1 can easily be added to your website just as it appears next to search results when logged into your Google account. There is a widespread belief that it will influence ranking and overall SEO, so if search is a big part of your marketing strategy, you can’t afford to ignore it.

5. TUMBLR

If you create blog-style content and update it frequently as part of your social media strategy – and you should – tumblr is the most social home for it. With community and social features such as the follow mechanic, as well as Q&A options, uses range from multimedia galleries to customer service portals.

6. FLICKR

You may be no photographer but you are likely to have images of something you could use to build a presence on this pic-sharing behemoth. Flickr’s social features include commenting, sharing, groups and favourites – all ideal as part of your social media strategy. Kicking off with these basic platforms is achievable – and necessary – for businesses of all sizes and in all sectors and are a good place to begin your social media marketing. Remember to watch this space as we will be releasing a range of online marketing blogs over the coming months. Our readers can also find our Opace Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/OpaceWebDesign. For all the latest goings on, you can keep up-to-date with Opace on Twitter https://twitter.com/OpaceWeb. And we also now have an Opace Google+ page live at https://plus.google.com/111516148099633923012.

Image credit – Jerry Nihen