Social media marketing (SMM) is the latest buzz in internet marketing.  The increasing popularity of social media websites and the growing number of users on social networking sites has prompted global companies to use the realm of social media for marketing their businesses.  While there is a lot of enthusiasm and optimism regarding social media marketing, the process involved in marketing using this platform remains unclear. SMM is a journey and unlike SEO, it involves smart play rather than hard work.  Here are some tips that can be used to make your social media marketing plan a success.

Always keep the client in the center.  The client’s business niche is most crucial in designing a social media marketing plan.  The network built on a website like FaceBook or twitter should be related to the business of the client. Though this platform may not give you the typical link benefit, the space itself may become a virtual business networking hub that helps you find potential business partners and clients.

Social media websites have great potential for online branding. Many global companies including Coke have used social networking sites to increase their brand awareness. Your profiles on these websites become a connecting point between you and your consumers.  Another important consideration that goes into using this mode of marketing is your definition of success in this platform. Before you plunge into social media marketing, it is most important to set your goals and be clear about what you are trying to achieve through SMM. Once you have decided this, you can take your social media marketing in a direction that takes you towards achieving the goal.

SMM has great marketing potential and there are three simple rules in achieving success through this medium- form the right network, interact genuinely and be focused about your business goal.

If you perform a Google search on any big company’s name with the word Facebook at the end, chances are the top result will be the company’s own official Facebook page. The same goes for Twitter and YouTube. CocaCola and Pepsi, Apple and Microsoft, Target and Walmart—they all have a presence on some social media platform.

Last week we reported on the recent statistics highlighting the social media revolution. The Internet was buzzing about the future of social media, media marketing, and how businesses can use social media to their advantage. This week, the results from a survey were released, detailing even further just how much social media has affected business and brand marketing. Within the next year, an astonishing 82 percent of brand marketers will be using social media to promote their brand, said Equation Research’s 2009 Marketing Industry Trends Report.

Now more than ever, it is essential to have a handle on social media. Not every platform needs to be explored, however. It’s about efficiently using your time while creating the most impact. Currently, many brands struggle with engaging users once the space is established. While the Equation report listed some great stats about social media, it also said that 37 percent of brands don’t know enough about social media to know where to begin.

Social media connects businesses to customers and clients in a unique way, engages them in meaningful conversation, and opens doors to options that couldn’t have been explored just a few years ago. One of the biggest doors social media has opened is the ability for businesses to promote social causes and missions, and the emerging trend of social entrepreneurship. Uniting users through a cause built around your brand is incredibly valuable–as it engages them on a high, meaningful level. Through this, the communication can make an impact and also send a message to customers that the company is interested in more than just making a profit.

Here are just a few examples of how social media is leading the way for social good:

Target: For years, the company allocated a certain percent of their profits to charities chosen by the company. This past year, Target announced that they were handing the power of giving to the people. For two weeks, Target opened a poll on its Facebook fan page allowing users to vote for the charity of their choice. At the end of the voting period, the company split up…

To read more about brands and social media, go to Sparxoo, a digital marketing, branding and business development blog.

Everybody is online and so your brand must have a social media strategy to reach your target market. If you still do not have it yet, then now is the best time to try thinking about it and if you have been thinking about it then now is the time to implement those plans. There are a lot of strategies you can use to reach out to your market all you need to do is to know how.

Surely you have heard of Twitter. This is similar to blogging but on a much smaller scale. In 140 words or less you can broadcast your message to everybody who is following you on Twitter. You can even tweet using your phone. This is a much faster way of updating all the people in your group about the things that are happening in your organization. Even your plans can be tweeted about so that you can create a hype of the upcoming event. It is strongly suggested that you use this extensively so that everybody knows what you are up to.

Blogging is also a great tool to use in your social media campaign. Unlike twitter where you are only limited to 140 characters, blogging gives you the freedom to talk extensively about something. You can create a platform in which your market can react to your posts. You can even upload photos on your blogs so that it creates a visual advertisement to your brand. Things and events that keep you busy or causes that matter for you and your brand are must topics for your blog. There are a lot of blog accounts that are free for you to use so there really is not reason why you should not have one.

Don’t take podcasts for granted as well. Busy people may not have enough time to read your blogs extensively. Some would prefer to have an option to download something for their mp3 player and listen to it while stuck in traffic or waiting in line. Even people who are working out in the gym prefer to listen to the things that they want to listen. So if you have an interesting message to share about your brand, then by all means do so. Try to fortify all of your forts when it comes to social media marketing.

We have touched about blogging and micro-blogging and these are something they can read. We have also talked about podcastings – something thaty our market can listen to. We can’t help but talk about going visual as well through video blogging. If you have not yet done so, create a channel at Youtube. A lot of companies have done so and it would be good if you do so as well. Just take a video camera and shoot and event or if you have a message you want to share you can have it on video as well. Upload it at Youtube and have it embedded on your social networking site. Then you just created a video for all to see.

As you can see the opportunities of having a social media strategy is endless so you better not be left behind.