1. Chapter 1Social Media Marketing:Building A NetworkFor Your Business

2. It seems like everyone has been talking about social media for a few years now. Thesesites are awesome for businesses to use because they are usually free and lots of peopleuse them. Here is how to use social media marketing to expand your customer base.Figure out where the majority of your customers are in social media. Put a survey up onyour website and allow people to vote on which site they use the most. This will allowyou to figure out where you have the best chance to reach out to people that already likeyour product. If youre not sure, then pick one thats very popular, like Facebook or Twitteras your starting point.After choosing a social media site to market on, set up your profile. This is usually prettystraightforward and takes little time. Remember that youre making this for your businessand not yourself, so fill out the profile accordingly.Once you have a profile up and running, you should then advertise it to your users. If youhave a mailing list, send them all an e-mail about it. Put up a link on your businesss mainwebsite. Draw as many people in as you can with whatever tools you have to communi-cate with your current customers.When you finally have a few people addedto your social network, you have to be sureto update them on whats going on fre-quently. Spamming them will not work butposting good quality content about whatsgoing on with a link to your products will.The better the quality of your advertisingand content, the more of a chance it has tobe shared with more networks. Looking at your competitions social media sites can provide great insight as to whatpeople expect from yours. Check their pages out and see what others are saying there.Notice how they built their profile and how they interact with others. Take what you learnwww.pinsondigital.com 3. and apply that in your own way to your page. Dont rip your competition completely off,just take what works and form it into something that will work for your company.Update people on things and share news about your niche every once in a while. If youonly use social media to advertise and nothing else, you wont last long. Even if you sharea news story and it gets shared, it will still link back to you as the original person whoshared it. Make sure your profile has a link to your main website so that if they are inter-ested they can visit and purchase something. The more everything you put out getsshared with others, the more potential customers you are reaching.By building and maintaining your social media site, youll reap the benefits of social me-dia marketing. This type of marketing is very effective and can help you reach a lot ofpeople if you put in the effort. Apply the article above to your marketing efforts and seewhat it can do for you!www.pinsondigital.com 4. Chapter 2Creating A Solid SocialMedia Marketing Campaign 5. With social media connecting everyone in the world to one another, it only makes sensethat it would make an excellent marketing tool. There are literally millions of people whosubscribe to one social media outlet or another. Not only are these people subscribers,they use them in their everyday lives to get a wealth of information about all sorts ofstuff. In recent years, businesses have caught on to this phenomenon and started usingsocial media to help promote them to people they never had access to before. However,developing a social media marketing strategy is not something you can just put togetherin a single afternoon. Rather, it requires a great deal of planning and effort. The followingarticle will help you learn what steps you should take to create a successful social mediamarketing campaign.First, you need to get ac-customed to all the differ-ent social media outletsthat are available to you.Dont stop with just Face-book and Twitter (thoughwe will talk about thesesites shortly). Instead findany social media site thatmight cater to your target audience so that you can really get your message out there toanyone and everyone who might be interested. Other sites such as LinkedIn might beeven more beneficial than the popular ones we mentioned earlier. It is important that youdo your homework so that you create the most efficient marketing strategy possible.Lets face it, in order to have a successful social media marketing strategy, you must havea Facebook page. Facebook is far and away the most popular social media site out there,and it doesnt look like that is going to change any time soon. However, simply creating aFacebook page is not enough. There are countless businesses out there that have blandand boring pages that all look the same, only to discover that they dont get any follow-ers. It is extremely important to have a page that stands out so that readers will have areason to stay and observe it. Try and make your page engaging and interesting so thatanyone who comes across it wont immediately hit that back button on their browser.www.pinsondigital.com 6. After an eye catching Facebook page, the next most important social media outlet is mostdefinitely Twitter. Twitter is great because it allows you to get the word out on any newannouncements your company might want its consumers to know. Your followers will getyour message immediately and will appreciate you for it. Also, it never hurts to add somehumorous posts now and then to attract even more followers. Be careful not to spam yourclients with too much repetitive information, however, as this can cause them to unfollowyou.You now have the very basics of starting a social media marketing campaign. This is by nomeans an end all be all solution, and you are going to have to amend your strategy sothat it complements your business nicely. However, if you use the information youve justread, you are well on your way towards making your business more visible.www.pinsondigital.com 7. Chapter 3Attracting New CustomersWith Social MediaMarketing 8. If you have a website of any kind, you need people to know about it. You need to do somekind of marketing, and if you are serious, you need to take a look at social media market-ing. Social media is free to use, and you can reach thousands of people instantly with yourmessages. Here are some smart tips for you to keep in mind as you are exploring socialmedia and using it for your marketing efforts1. Observe before you start interacting. This is a key step to take. When you are just start-ing out with social media, you may want to jump in right away, but that is not a wise idea.Get a feel for how each site works and how people interact with each other.2. Check out your competitions profiles. You dont want to copy them, but you do want toget a few ideas. Watch how they interact with their followers and friends. See how oftenthey update their page. See what they are doing that is good, and how they can improve.That way, you can avoid their mistakes and start off on the right foot. 3. Act like a professional. You may see a lot of people posting all kinds of things on social media, but remember one thing: your professional profile is not your per- sonal profile. If you have a burning desire to tell people what your lunch tasted like, save it for the profile that isnt linked to your financial livelihood. The only excep- tion to this, of course, would be if you had a food blog related to your own cuisine!4. Talk to people. This is supposed to be social, remember? Take the time to look aroundand see what your followers are posting. What are their problems? What do they want?This is a great way to learn more about your customers, and in turn find out how you canbetter serve them. There could be a lot of great ideas that results from the simple art ofconversation.www.pinsondigital.com 9. 5. Write content that excites people. When your posts are interesting to people, they aregoing to be more likely to share with their networks, which opens you up to thousands ofnew customers. Do your best to provide content that is relevant, thought-provoking orfunny. That way, people will not wait to be told to share; they will just do it.6. Give people a call to action periodically. While you have to be very careful that you donot hard-sell on social media, you have to be just as adamant that your business deservesbusiness! About once every two or three days, provide information that really talks up oneof your products.With these tips, you have the basics of what you need to know in social media. Social me-dia can be a great way for you to build relationships, create loyalty, and reach new peopleall the time. Use the tips in your efforts and youll see great results. www.pinsondigital.com 10. Chapter 45 Tips For SolidSocial Media Marketing 11. Social media marketing provides a platform for gaining millions of potential customers.There are numerous ways you can approach this form of fairly new advertising. This arti-cle will provide you with five simple in depth tips and tricks you can apply to your socialmedia marketing endeavors for optimal results.The first step to social media marketing is to set up your companys pages. You probablyalready have a few websites in mind such as Twitter or Facebook. It is important that be-fore you start any major marketing efforts, your profiles have all the common informationfilled out and you have uploaded your companys logos. If your chosen social media web-site allows, consider adding things like a custom background for your profile, customerimages and reviews. The more on-hands media and information you provide for custom-ers, the more people will be interested in your company and its products.Keep a schedule to regularly update all of your social media profiles. The number onefailure in social media marketing is to avoid proper updates or only do them weekly. Ithas been a proven fact that companies who update their profiles once a day see an in-crease in customers. Your updates should be relevant to the business and shouldnt besomething that viewers could consider spam. Provide customers with intellectual andvaluable information that they could not find elsewhere.Contests attract a great deal ofattention on social media web-sites. People love to get some-thing for free, which is theperfect reason for you to host acontest. There are hundreds ofways you can go about hostinga contest, but the ones that at-tract the most attention arecustomer review contests, petcontests or contests where us-ers submit children photos. Thewww.pinsondigital.com 12. latter two have a cute factor that no one can deny and will attract plenty of wanted atten-tion. You can make these contests work in your favor by giving out some of your productsas prizes. It is not only much like sending samples, but people who are satisfied with yourcontest prize products are likely to come back for more.Your social media pages wont receive attention overnight. You have to put in some effortto gain some wanted followers. The best way to do this is to make the connection be-tween your main companys website and your social media profiles. Place links on yourcompany website that lead back to your social media pages. Many people choose to usethe well-known social media logos for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. This is a goodpractice to go by as it makes the connection obvious and easy to spot by people lookingfor it.Invite the customers that you currently have to participate actively in your social mediaprofiles. Customers who already know your company and are happy to deal with you willmore than likely become an active follower. Gain their attention by sending out an emailto your current customers, letting them know that you have made a presence on their fa-vorite social media websites. Make sure to only send this type of email if the customerhas given their permission to hear any form of news from your company.Social media marketing reaches millions of potential customers in a given day. This iswhat makes it such a popular marketing platform for many companies to pursue. You canmake great impact in the community just by setting up your social media profiles and let-ting others see what your company has to offer! www.pinsondigital.com 13. Chapter 5A Few Costly MistakesPeople Make ThroughSocial Media Marketing 14. Lets be honest, the wide world of social media has expanded into virtually every aspectof our culture, including business. It has been proven to be a valuable marketing tool ifused correctly and with a solidly developed strategy. Unfortunately, there are countlessmistakes, often expensive ones that inexperienced businesses often make when carryingout a social media marketing campaign. The following article will detail you on some ofthe most common mistakes businesses make so that you may avoid them in the future.The first marketing mistake we will discuss is a business failure to cultivate social mediarelationships with its vendors. Your vendors are your supply chain and thus an extremelyimportant part of your business. When you are developing a social media marketing strat-egy, make sure that your vendors are a part of that strategy. This will allow you to estab-lish a good relationship with your business partners while also affording you anotheroutlet to promote your business. This is often overlooked by inexperienced companies.Another social media marketing strategy that is often made is neglecting to use the net-working powers provided by LinkedIn. We all know that Facebook and Twitter are the twomost popular social networkingsites in the world, but in thebusiness world, there is no socialnetworking site better thanLinkedIn. The reason is simple.Sites such as Facebook and Twit-ter are used by the masses, butoften on a more personal level.LinkedIn, on the other hand, is aprofessional site solely dedicatedto the business world. It will al-low you to connect with poten-tial clients as well as investors. Italso has a more reputable andprofessional feel which will giveyour business a more legitimatelook.www.pinsondigital.com 15. On the flip side, some companies try to look a little too professional. Another commonsocial media marketing mistake that many businesses make is they keep their companyspersonality hidden. You shouldnt be afraid to show what your company is all about. Aboring and stuffy marketing campaign will do little to attract anyone. Instead, allow yourpersonality to show a little so that people get a true idea of what your business is reallyabout.Yet, another mistake made when undergoing a social media marketing strategy is to ex-pect results instantly. Too often a business will start a marketing campaign and will beshocked when business doesnt pick up within the next few days. Understand that socialmedia marketing takes time and there is a great deal of patience required. Once you havedeveloped a solid campaign strategy, you have to give it time to take effect.The whole world of social media marketing is relatively new and it will require a greatdeal of new and unique concepts. Avoiding some of the common and costly mistakesmentioned above will give you a leg up on the competition when you start developingyour own strategy. So long as you put in the time and work, your marketing efforts canlead to great success for you and your business.www.pinsondigital.com 16. About Pinson DigitalPinson Digital LLC, is a Salem Oregon based inbound marketing agency. Well help turn your web-site into a sales and marketing machine with awesome content, compelling offers and a strategyfor converting leads into sales.For more information, please contact us at 503-584-1124 or pinsongroup@gmail.comwww.pinsondigital.com| @pinsondigital | facebook.com/pinsondigital