Which Form of Social Media is Right for YOU?

Social media has EXPLODED over the past 5 years. Once a novelty has become one of the most powerful marketing tools available. Social Media marketing has gained an expansive amount of popularity due to its cost effectiveness, ease of use, broad appeal, and mass distribution. It has given power to people with small marketing budgets to send messages to their potential clients no matter how small or niche the industry.

Businesses big and small have jumped on the social media marketing band wagon. Managing an account on every single social network is time consuming and not effective for smaller businesses. It is important to realize which social networks your demographic uses and how to effectively use it. By targeting specific social media networks and ignoring others, you can dedicate your time (and budget) to the most cost-effective marketing channel.

The first thing to consider when choosing which social networks to join is whether or not you are part of a niche industry. If you have a general content than creating a Facebook fan page and a twitter account could suffice. You will be able to target people in your area using Facebook and then redirect them to follow your Twitter account. For niche industries, you may want to promote your business more direct networks such as Digg or Reddit.  If you want to create a professional profile for business to business networking, I highly recommend LinkedIn.

Another important thing to consider is how much content to share and how often. If you want to distribute a lot of content to your followers, you may want to use Digg, RSS feeds, Delicious, Stumble Upon, or your blog. If you plan on giving short updates or holding contests, you will want to take advantage of Twitter's abilities. You should also set up these networks to your smart phone or mobile device so you can send updates to your followers no matter where you go.

There are also many services that can aide in managing these social networks. I would recommend checking out TweetDeck and HootSuite. These services allow you to manage all of your social media sites at the same time along with scheduling updates. You can set timers to when you want your updates to be distributed so that you send out the exact message at the right time, even if you aren't on the computer.

There is no question that social media is a great tool for marketing. I recommend that every business, no matter the size, take advantage of the tools associated with social media. However, it is important to always be aware of change and what is on the horizon. While social media is popular right now, we know technology is changing as we speak.

For more information, check out the following articles:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/08/how-to-target-the-right-social-media-sites/

http://traffikd.com/resources/35-must-read-articles-for-social-media-marketers/

http://www.capecodseo.com/social-media-no-brainers/