The explosion of social media over the last few years has been tremendous and it has opened up a whole new world of marketing opportunities to the savvy business, whether small or large.

However, it can also be a bit overwhelming and, if it is managed badly, potentially disastrous for your business. That’s no reason to ignore it though. Good social media management can reap huge rewards for your company.

Here are three social media outlets you can use – and more importantly, how you can use them effectively.

Facebook

Yes, of course you’ve heard of it. Who hasn’t? With over 500 million users, Facebook can give you access to a whole new customer base if you make your presence felt.

How: If you’re not on Facebook personally, sign up now. Once you’ve done that, you can create a page for your business and reserve your business name if it hasn’t already been taken. Now search for your competitors. Are they on Facebook? If so, what are they doing on there? How many people ‘Like’ them? What sort of things do they post on their wall (photos, video, updates)? Do their customers also post on their wall?

Once you’ve spent some time researching your competitors you’ll have a reasonable idea of what is expected and some ideas of your own to implement. Remember, anything you post to Facebook will appear on the Walls of anyone who has liked you – that’s how you get your message across and that’s why it needs to be managed properly.

WORD OF WARNING: If it’s YOUR business, make your business page under YOUR Facebook account. Don’t ask a member of your staff to do it. You need to retain control. You can make a member of staff an administrator later if you wish to pass the responsibility to your marketing department, but you need to retain overall control.

You can promote your business using Facebook Ads too – these can be targeted very effectively for a maximum return on investment. Check out their advertising pages for more information.

Twitter

You may or may not have heard of Twitter, though if you haven’t by now there’s something wrong! The micro-blogging site has enjoyed massive growth over the last two to three years and can be utilised very effectively to promote your business and connect with your customers, building both your brand and customer loyalty.

Sign up to Twitter with your company name and, if you intend to engage with your customers personally, with your own name too (or a variant of at least). Spend some time getting to know Twitter, search for terms relating to your business – “golf accessories” or “golf clubs” if that’s what you sell – and see what people are talking about. Search for your competitors and see what people are saying about them and what they are saying themselves if they’re already on Twitter.

Most importantly, search for your company and see if people are talking about you! If you find a complaint about your company, address that person directly on Twitter and find out what the problem was and resolve it. You’ll be amazed at the goodwill you earn from doing that. If you don’t think it should be sorted out publicly, contact them and offer to discuss their problem in private. You can do this via Direct Message to keep any exchange of email addresses or phone numbers out of the public domain.

Of course, just like Facebook, you can use Twitter to announce any new products or services too.

Company Blog

You might not think a company blog counts as social media marketing but it does. What you put on your own blog can be spread very quickly via the likes of Facebook and Twitter – either by yourself or, preferably, by your customers.

Content is king here and you should focus on what you know and what you enjoy. If your company sells golf equipment, focus on writing about golf. Offer playing tips, recommend courses and talk about new product lines. If your blog is engaging and you sound like you know what you’re talking about AND that you enjoy it you’ll build an audience and that audience will spread your word for you.

Make it easy for them to do so by adding social media widgets to your blog so they can just click a button to share your posts on Facebook, Twitter and a host of other sites.

This requires a bit of technical know-how but it really isn’t that difficult and it’s worth taking the time to learn.

Speaking of time – I’m sure all this seems like a huge investment of time and money and it can be. Your social media marketing should be built into your existing marketing plan and budgets and your strategy should be integrated into it too.

Once you’re comfortable with your strategy and you’re seeing results, there are more social media sites and tools you can use. LinkedIn, Foursquare and Yelp are just three off the top of my head.

The point is, if you plan your social media marketing properly it will give you a significant advantage over your competitors. Get started now!

Author Bio: Trevor Richards is writing on behalf of Fluid Creativity (http://www.fluidcreativity.co.uk), a full service digital agency in Manchester, specialising in social media marketing.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: social media, social media marketing, facebook, twitter, blogging