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Social Media Marketing Do’s and Don’ts (part 3)
It’s a beautiful day here in Texas. What better way to start off a day than discuss a little bit of Social Media Marketing (SMM). I’m going to start using the acronym because I’m lazy and I don’t want to type more than I have to. Anyway, let’s recap the four SMM Do’s and Don’ts we’ve discussed up to this point:
- Build a Strong and Effective Social Network
- Don’t Spam
- Establish Trust and Credibility
- Remember Your Social Profiles
Most of what you’ve read so far is probably common sense. However, I’ve learned that a reminder every now and then is a good thing. The goal is to bring together the different pieces that impact SMM. That’s enough rambling for now.
5. Listen
The fifth component I want to bring to your attention is listening. No, I am not talking about listening with your ears. I’m talking about listening with your eyes…commonly referred to as reading. Are you confused yet? Well, I will do my best to de-confuse you.
You must keep your finger on the pulse of everything that is going on in your industry, or niche, in order to remain effective. How can you keep your reader’s informed and interested if you have no idea of what’s going on around you? Not only do you need to remain informed of news directly related to your products and services, but you need to remain informed of social media networks. Someone may create a tool that works in conjunction with Twitter and will increase your website traffic by 50% in less than one month. That would be awesome, but you won’t know anything about it if you’re not listening.
So how can you listen? I will discuss some of the methods we use here at StopDev to stay informed in another article later this week. For now, just know that you need to know what’s going on.
6. Don’t Ditch SEO
Let’s talk about SEO for a few minutes. SMM is not a replacement for SEO (search engine optimization). These are two completely different things. SMM is the use of social networks to market your website/blog. SEO is an attempt to improve your overall search engine rankings so you can be easily found through Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
SMM can improve SEO, but it can’t replace SEO. You should engage in both. In essence, you are attempting to capture the interest of two different audiences. I know it sounds like a lot of work. How can you hold down a job, stay involved in SMM, and not give up on SEO? I’m not going to lie to you. It’s a ton of work and you would sleep easier and be less stressed if you would let someone like us help you out with this stuff. J
Don’t miss part 4 of SMM Do’s and Don’ts tomorrow.
Read: Part 4
