As social networking industry is booming small business owners are looking it as a low cost marketing platform. Small businesses are considering social media as a medium to sell or resale their products.There are three simple but effective ways by which small business owners can market their products in the social media.

1. Communicate with your Customers

Marketing is all about creating and maintaining new relationship and a relationship is all about maintaining communication. So from here we can understand that communication is the most important steps to success in social media marketing.

Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn allows business owners to market their products. Other web tools like podcasting (BlogTalkRadio), event coordination (Meetup), photo sharing (photobucket, Flickr), wikis (Wikipedia, answers.com), video distribution (YouTube, Metacafe) allow small business owners to share information directly with their customers.

Contents in the form of blog post, video or audio, review or comparison, social network message or tweets help to share information and guide the customers in a less formal way.

This approach builds like and trust factor between the business owners and the customers. Features like targeted viewers allow business owners to market their product to customers based on their location, gender or interests. Facebook sports this feature.

Social media’s direct communication feature helps business owners to communicate to their target customers. Social networks has made it possible for the customers to give feedback about their experience regarding the products. This feedback helps the business owners to improve their product.

2. Collaboration boost customer-owner relationship

When small businesses communicate with their target customers, they feel powerful. When the target consumers feel powerful they buy from you, trust you and stay in touch with you. It is the consumers in this era (of media marketing) who make, break or shape purchase patterns.

Small businesses create communities or join already created communities to ignite the company-consumer collaboration. These communities bring their target customers nearer to them and in turn increase their percentage of sale. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter etc. serves this purpose.

Consumers trust social networks more than the companies itself as they rely on peers other than adverts. Social collaboration has become important to boost sales and popularity of a product.

3. Entertainment attracts less interest customers

Have you ever thought why social media serves as a marketing tool? No? I’ll tell you why. Social networks are fun and full of entertainment. Small businesses market their products by entertaining the consumers. People choose the place where they feel they are being listened to and enjoy themselves.

Social networking giant Facebook, serves as an entertaining market by featuring Facebook likes or fan pages. Amount of like shows a company’s popularity (not always). Other social media sites like Twitter attracts small businesses to market their product as they too have entertaining value.

Always remember to blend your product marketing with the social media tools. Try to post some relevant videos with some humorous title. Entertainment is an important mantra for social marketing.

Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are becoming business owners interests as they are fast, entertaining, fun and not to mention very popular.

So what will be your company’s strategy when it comes to marketing on social media?

It seems like there very few really good books that cover online marketing in as comprehensive a fashion as Kathleen Gage’s “Power Up For Profits.” I’ve been following her for years and she always gives high-value content. Her book is no exception.

Although her chapters go through the usual suspects, such as choosing your niche, ideal client, creating products, building a list, etc., Kathleen adds to the mix her vast experience in online and offline marketing, plus many insider tips along the way. You get to see how SHE did it. Plus in her content, she also discusses why you should do this or that. It’s important to know the “why.”

She illustrates her strategies with charts that make it easy-to-understand and see at a glance the entire process. For example, in the chapter on information products, she illustrates her points with a chart on the “Product Life Cycle.” This is a very helpful chart that lays out the process that a product goes through. You can see at a glance where your product is in the cycle and also see what stages you might be leaving out.

Throughout the book Kathleen gives real-life examples from her or her clients’ experiences. These are helpful to illustrate different ways to use the strategies she teaches.

Kathleen shares many strategies in her book, such as market positioning, establishing a social media presence, creative blog marketing, how to incorporate web radio to gain massive visibility, and how to profit from free publicity.

This book is packed with her formulas for all the strategies she has used herself to build a profitable business. For example…

• She has a 9-step process for “Article Development and Distribution Process,” including what needs to be included in a good article so you can position yourself as an expert.
• There’s a whole chapter on how to use blogging in your business with all the tips and techniques for getting the biggest bang for your buck.
• Another section discusses the best procedures for setting up joint venture partnerships.
• And another one gives her ten steps for successful list-building.

She also shares many of her insights on running a profitable business such as…

• Know your market and connect with them not just with tactics, but also on an energetic level.
• If you want to succeed, you need to know who your market is, how to market to them, what the market perception of you and your business is, what market trends impact your business, and how all these components fit together.
• If you don’t identify what makes you unique, your market won’t be able to either.
• Know your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.

In most cases, direct return on investments of time and money is not the best measurement of success for any particular strategy—it’s the amount of interaction you receive.

Some of these strategies, I have heard before, but reading Kathleen’s book, gave me new insights to these and new information I didn’t have. You can always learn something new. I especially appreciated her chapters on affiliate marketing and joint venture partnerships, including techniques for getting interviews with high-profile industry leaders.

Kathleen Gage has built a very successful business and it’s worth your time to read about how she did it and what she recommends and doesn’t recommend. This book is the ultimate textbook on marketing your business in conversational, easy-to-understand language. It should be in your business library.

Blogging is everywhere we look, from major websites to smaller, individually run blogs. Millions of businesses and individuals post blog articles on a daily business, and there are even search engines set up specifically for blog-related searches.

Since blogging is now so prevalent, it’s essential to adhere to some content marketing rules. Listed below are some top rules that every blogger should know and follow:

Know your Audience

How can you be a successful blogger if you don’t truly know your audience? With every blog post it’s essential that you talk directly to your readers, not Google. This maintains reader interest and ensures you are crafting an interesting blog that readers will return to time and time again.

Maintain a Consistent Style

Be consistent throughout your blog posts or social media posts, using the same voice and visual styling (such as bullet points, numbering and paragraphing). Don’t throw your readers with different styles per post. Although it’s good to vary your style slightly now and then, it’s better to stick to a similar formula for each post to maintain consistency. Also, research has proven that readers value consistency.

Reference

Used a quote or resource from somewhere else? Reference it! Referencing is very important as this ensures your readers are supplied with completely accurate information. All content that you create must be accurately referenced and cited, including a link within your blog post. This also gives your posts a bit of substance and shows that you’ve put in plenty of research into the piece.

Meet Deadlines

Although journalism and blogging differ, they are similar in that they both require deadlines to be met. With blogging, your devoted readers expect you to post at the same time of day or week, and if you don’t, you run the risk of losing those followers, who will head towards your competitors in a flash.

Proofread and Edit

Check, check and check again before publishing a post. Once a post goes live don’t sit back and relax; re-read it, scanning for any spelling, grammar or content mistakes.

According to online entrepreneur, Charles Duncombe, a single spelling mistake can slash online sales by 50%, so be sure to go through every single piece of content with a fine-tooth comb. Also, check your statistics to make sure they remain accurate. Statistics are always changing so perhaps you always revise them to be sure they are up to date.