Social Media Marketing is undoubtedly here to stay as more and more businesses get on the bandwagon to engage targeted customers in conversation each day.  Social Media Marketing (SMM) typically involves social engagement with your customers and prospects on the various Web 2.0 channels.  These Web 2.0 channels include the principal social networks such as Facebook, Twitter  and Linkedin together with blogging, video marketing on sites such as YouTube, social bookmarking and more.

Organic SEO

Organic Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) uses targeted keywords and keyword phrases in page headings, body text and the hyper-links found on your web pages.  This is known as ‘on-page optimisation’, however it is only one part of the organic SEO process.  To get the best results on the search engines you need to have a dedicated link building strategy in place.  Links from trusted and well ranked social media channels are amongst the most powerful links available.

Blogging

Blogging is the very heart of good Social Media Marketing.  Begin by adding a blog to your website – make sure the blog is hosted as part of your domain and not on one of the servers of one of the specialist blogging providers such as blogspot.com or blogger.com.  Writing original and interesting blog posts will be a natural link magnet for other blogs.  Good bloggers usually link to the source articles that they reference in their own blog posts.  Links to your blog which is part of your website, will benefit your whole domain i.e. both your blog and your website!

Content is King

You will have heard many times the famous online marketing saying “Content is King”  This is absolutely true.  When you incorporate a blog into your website you will be able to regularly add good quality, keyword rich content to your website.  Every blog post will be seen as an individual page and moreover because the mainstream blogs all use RSS feeds your new content will be indexed almost immediately by the search engines. 

More content on your website will give the search engines more pages to index, resulting in more targeted traffic finding your website via the search engines. By adding more content to your website you will also have more opportunity to attract more inbound links to it.

Whitepapers and Content Marketing

Try to post authoritative whitepapers and good quality articles on your website.  Include your observations on any data used in the post and offer an opinion on issues that affect your market or industry.  Offer advice to your readers and, if appropriate, make predictions about future developments. Good quality insightful whitepapers and articles can be extremely powerful tools to help you attract links. Share any articles on Scribd or Slideshare for even greater results.

Bookmarking

Stumbleupon, Delicious and Digg are all highly ranked social bookmarking channels which will dramatically improve your organic search engine rankings when used correctly.  Add appropriate ‘plug-ins’ to your blog and make it easy for your visitors to bookmark or share your content with others.

If you would like more information about using Social Media Marketing in your business please leave a comment below or visit WSI IMS – WSI Digital marketing Services in Surrey, Sussex, Kent & the South East.