Fact is, there are business owners that are just too darn scared of even using social media. So to help ease your fears I have gathered some tips and advice to help you get started.

Choose wisely

Pick a social networking site you feel comfortable joining (could be a site geared towards music, business or even arts and crafts) Keeping in mind that you’ll want to join a network that is within your interests and goals. The main home pages usually have a “sign up’ button. Simply click and add your information. Don’t rush it and start joining dozens of site – get a feel of how social media works and just take it from there.

Getting a Feel for the Community

Its best to learn how the network flows and simply observe. Take notes of what seems to work, or not work, what you like about the site and so forth. What are the members chatting about, what are the popular discussions. Is there real activity or very little movement on the site.

What’s the plan

What are your goals? Are you looking to use the medium to gain new clients, keep in touch with current ones, check out the competition? Setting up a plan will help you review your accomplishments as well as areas of improvement.

Observe and Learn

An vital part to an effective social media campaign is to keep track of who may be chatting about your business or company, what are they saying, and how is the community are reacting to it. Monitoring what may be said about your business will will help you tweak your marketing plan and benefit from it…it may even help you gain new business.

Be a part of the Community and Action

Although your goal may be to gain new business, don’t come across as just business. Interact and be social. You’re time on social network does not have to be all business. Being more real like sharing your day to day comings and goings, special events, likes and dislikes will make you more approachable.

Get Feedback

Ask for feedback, reviews and insight to help you reach your target more effectively. One powerful use for social media in business is as a customer service tool. Instead of waiting for a customer to air a complaint, use social media as a way to engage and interact with your audience. And be sure to thank everyone who chimes in individually.

Consistency is Key

Your profiles, comments, posts and conversations should stay true to your company’s overall mission and values. If more than one person is posting on behalf of your company, it’s vital to have a standard tone and guidelines for consistency. Once you expand your reach to more than one social media site, consistency is even more important.

Social media networks are ever changing; from guidelines, features to design. What may work today, such as being the top searched term or phrase on Twitter, may not work tomorrow.

You’ll quickly learn that the more your participate the more people you will reach, the more exposure to your business you’ll receive and the more traffic you will get.

* 57.7% of respondents “ideally” plan, and

* 56.3% “realistically” plan to include social media in their media plans next year.

The key phrase here is “plan” as without a well researched social media strategy, there will likely be numerous failed social media initiatives.

Here is some steps social media strategy that Sally Falkow developed and has presented at several social media bootcamps:

1. Listen to conversations – what good or bad things are they saying about you and your competitors?

2. Establish share of voice – there are already conversations going on – what share do you have?

3. Set goals/benchmarks – using the data collected work out your goals and benchmarks (i.e. what your starting point is).

4. Find bloggers and communities – locate the bloggers and communities that will be of interest to you going forward.

5. Identify influencers – who do your customers trust?

6. Develop a content strategy – what content will your target communities and influencers be interested in?

7. Pick tools – should you blog or be on Facebook, Twitter or other sites?

8. Create and deliver the content – create the blog posts, Twitter posts and so on.

9. Engage and facilitate conversations – don’t just publish content, engage with your audiences. A conversation is two way.

10. Measure results – set up and monitor metrics to manage the program.

1. Extend your marketing strategy
It’s important to use Twitter as an extension to your current marketing process. Take what you’ve already got as ads and strategies and implement it on Twitter too. This can’t serve as an independent mean of getting yourself known, but it’s best exploiting it like a new discovery. Don’t give up what you’ve already created, but extend it to what’s new and catches the eye of the public.

2. Announce your deals and discounts through Twitter.
Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. What does this mean? It means that it’s a combination between a blog and an instant messenger. This makes it great for announcing the latest news. If you are using Twitter for your business nothing can catch better than a promotion and a 24 hour discount announced in the last minute.

3. Build a community of real, true fans.
True fans are not just any fans. They are the followers which are literally interested in what you have to say or what you have in store for them. A true fan won’t just buy your products, but he will also tell all his other followers about it. True fans are the ones which do the real marketing for you. You tweet something – they re-tweet it the same day.
A community of 1000 true fans is in fact worth 100 000 ordinary fans. This is because real fans promote you to others just like you would do it yourself.
So, rather than investing your time in getting in superficial contact with lots of people, just find the ones which are really interested in what you have and keep them connected, create a community for them.

4. Create intriguing discussion around your products.
Twitter is the one place where negative publicity is not necessarily bad. People will talk about it and there’s always room for conflict. So if you have a negative report on what you are selling Twitter is the place where that can be discussed and transform into something positive and productive.

5. Gain credibility.
Ever felt like your buyers feel distant? I bet you’ve tried lots of methods to get them closer. It’s all about creating a warm feeling around your products. Again, using Twitter you can give a more human look to your company. You will be closer to the people who like your products, you will be ore credible and ultimately sell more.

Creating a marketing plan that is holistic, reaches the market that one is targeting, and is consistent, is a challenge. When one is attempting to perform the tasks necessary to make a marketing campaign effective there is often no time to maintain one’s business.

Using a social media marketing service allows a person the ability to utilize professionals and their services at an affordable cost. The services often provide marketing services for every medium that is in touch with that market. This includes articles, videos, press releases, etc. The service provides the kind of information and quality content that motivates the reader to visit the website.

The service provides a business with the necessary consistent presence in the market that will raise their visibility, brand, and search engine rankings in every medium that is serviced. By creating instant visibility in a market a business can effectively create a personalized approach to marketing and develop the necessary trust of customers that will help the business to thrive.

When a marketing campaign is designed and created as a total concept it is often much more affordable than a piecemeal reactive marketing approach. A business owner finds it very difficult to maintain the pace required to produce regular, timely distribution of videos, articles, etc., and maintain their business.

An automated social media marketing service can expand the services and productivity of a website business with minimal effort. By incorporating the services of professionals who have experience in all aspects of Internet marketing a person will be assured that the marketing products produced will meet the requirements to raise their presence in the market they are targeting and raise their search engine rankings.

You surely do not need to be told what Facebook is but, for those who have been living in a cave for the past ten years, Facebook is a social networking site which allows individuals and businesses to set up their own page and find friends, leave messages, post pictures and communicate with others in real time. It’s free to set up and you can use it from anywhere in the world where you have access to the internet.

So, you can create your own page in minutes and start inviting people who you know to become a fan of your page. You could set up a group in your own company name and allow people to join the group. In turn, they can then invite everyone they know and so it snowballs. What you can then do is add features to your page with regular posts and updates just to keep everyone informed. It’s all possible within a few moments and it really is very simple.

Facebook also allows you the option to pay for advertising on its site. You can do this as a one off advert and payment or you can use pay per click options which means that you pay as and when someone clicks on your advert through to your website.

The beauty of social networking sites is that you can now link them all by pointing from one to another. So, you may want to point your Twitter account to your Facebook account and to your LinkedIn account, and so on. One way or another, you are quite simply encouraging visits to your own website and making it easier to be found. You are constantly promoting your business and hopefully picking up referrals along the way. It only takes one person to see your advert or page, use you and tell their friends about you, and the possibilities are endless. Facebook is used by millions of people all over the world and so imagine the potential reach to your audience.