Creating a “buzz” around products, services, businesses or an event is a requirement from all clients. There is no social media marketing wand that someone will wave and a target audience will automatically start coming to your site. And what works for one brand may not work for another.
The process of creating buzz doesn’t start from creating a Blog or creating a video, it’s a social media strategy that encompasses social media and word-of-mouth marketing. We have compiled a list of social media tools that companies use to build their social media marketing mixes.
1. BlogsBlogs have become a great tool for social media marketing. First because, if optimized correctly, they can be used to drive traffic to a website. A good blog will help in creating internal links, fresh content, active community, or non-search engine traffic.
Examples of popular blogs where you can create your account are:
Wordpress
Blog.com
Bloggers.com
Typepad, etc.
2. MicrobloggingLike blogs, microblogs offer huge opportunities for business promotion. That is both through content consistency and good optimization. Two of the most used are Posterous and Twitter.
3. Online VideoThe importance of online videos has rapidly increased during the last few years. To read more on this topic, have a look at our blog on The Growing Importance of Online Video (http://www.syscomminternational.com/blog/). Popular video sharing websites include YouTube and Vimeo.
4. PhotosharingSocial media is all about sharing! Therefore, there are numerous platforms that allow photo sharing with your friends. Some of them are: Flickr.com, Memeo.com, and Photobucket.com.
5. PodcastingPodcasting is part of the new media tools that are offered to both promote your brand and your products/services. Check out Blip.fm or RadioPodcast.fr.
6. Presentation SharingAnother great way to put your brand’s name in the spotlight is by offering presentations on topics of interest for your audience on presentation sharing websites. They are increasingly gaining in popularity nowadays. Some of them are:
SlideShare.net
MyPlick.com
Scribd.com
AuthorSTREAM.com
7. Social Networks: Applications, Fan Pages, Groups, and PersonalitiesSocial networks are the place to present and promote yourself as well as to keep in touch with your targeted audience. You can read a list of the most popular on our blog on Top Social Media Network Sites (http://www.syscomminternational.com/blog/top-social-media-network-sites)!
8. Crowd Sourcing/VotingCrowdsourcing is an effective model because it can be used for developing programs, marketing efforts, research, and education. For example Dell has used Crowdsourcing as a distributed problem-solving and production model and has reduced costs and increased their efficiency. Also look at the Grand Challenge for FNIH (http://www.fnih.org/) to see a crowd sourcing campaign.
9. Bookmarking/TaggingSocial bookmarking is a method for Internet users to share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources.Examples of popular social bookmarking websites:
delicious.com
Digg
Diigo
Fark
Mixx
MyBlogLog
Newsvine
Propeller
Reddit
Slashdot.org
StumbleUpon
Yahoo!
Buzz
10. Discussion Boards and ForumsOnline forums are a great way to market your products/services and interact with other professionals or your audience. Engaging your audience in your niche forum can bring high value to your site and brand too.
11. Content AggregationContent aggregation offers you the chance to bring all news and feeds around your online community accounts in one place. Some say this is the future of social media. Emerging content aggregation websites:
Bloglines
FriendFeed
Lifestream.fm
Lijit
12. Brand MonitoringSocial media is also offering a variety of tools that help businesses understand the positioning of their brand. Popular examples are:
Buzzlogic
Radian6
ReputationDefender
13. Ratings and ReviewsThe best way to find out where your website stands or how your brand is perceived by others is through ratings and reviews. See Yelp, or GetSatisfaction.
14. WidgetsFor those who are trying to promote their own brands, they can create personalized badges, using interesting widgets on Facebook, Twitter, and other networks or by simply using WidgetBox or SpringWidgets.
15. WikisWikis are our online encyclopedia. A short list of wikis:
Wikipedia.org
Citizendium.org
AboutUs.org
Pbwiki
PBworks.com
Wetpaint.com
Along with all the new ways of publishing your content on networking sites, it is important to publish your articles on publishing sites like EzineArticles, eHow, Google Docs (docs.google.com), IdeaMarketers, Yahoo Articles Group (groups.yahoo.com) and submit your press releases on important specialized sites like i-Newswire, PR.com, PressReleasePoint, and PRLog.org.
Social Media Marketing can be very confusing at times. There are lots of networks and channels to choose from. Creating a presence on all the channels is very time consuming and randomly choosing a network is not a good social media strategy. Companies are struggling to understand what social media marketing mix they should use to make their brand successful in the online world.
We suggest it is important to identify which channels are suitable for your business depending on your target audience. Businesses must plan a step-by-step online marketing strategy and brainstorm ideas with their online marketing agency that will work for their products/service.
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