How to Market Your Brand via Social Media Websites

Go to social media sites such as Digg, del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon, and you'll find people bookmarking, rating, and discussing news items, videos, and other web pages that caught their attention. You'll also find networks of people who have connected with each other via their online profiles.

In the age of Web 2.0, social media sites are making an impact. Search engine optimization helps bring people to your site via search engines. Social media sites, on the other hand, provide user-generated links to lead people to your site. They're the online version of word-of-mouth advertising. You don't even need to wait for them to come to you — you can go to them.

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This article is offered by your web hosting provider and will address the strategies of marketing your website through social media websites.

What is social media?

The term social media is used for online communities that people use to interact and share information and opinions, such as blogs, forums, wikis, photo and video sharing sites, and social bookmarking sites. Social media sites are sites where communities can interact. Each social media site offers different methods of communicating, from bookmarking and rating to discussion.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing, or SMM, is using social media sites to make your brand known. Unlike advertising, it doesn't lead to direct results. The idea behind SMM is to build brand awareness of your services, products, or company at sites where users link to and talk about services, products, and companies. Sales come later.

Optimize your website for social media sites

Social media optimization (SMO) is the term coined for optimizing websites to be linked to by social media sites.

Create content that people will want to bookmark. Quality how-to articles, other informative pages, and videos are among the content types that are commonly bookmarked at social media sites.

Make your pages topic-specific and comprehensive. Pages with one product or product type per page and detailed product descriptions are more likely to get links than pages with numerous products of different types, only some of which may interest each person. Photos, dimensions, and information about such topics as product safety and usefulness increase link possibilities.

Offer tools or giveaways. If you can offer something unique and relevant to your content that site visitors can use or copy, you've added linkable value to your site.

Keep your content current. No one wants to link to outdated information. Update your pages when you can.

Allow customer feedback. Customer reviews and ratings add value for site visitors and for people considering linking to the page.

Add social media bookmarks to your web pages. For example, this blog has a collection of bookmark icons below each article. These serve as an additional call to action for each page.

Use user-friendly URLs. URLs with session IDs don't help with inbound links. Static links do.

Provide RSS feeds. Make it as easy as possible for people to access your content. RSS feeds not only allow people to subscribe to them, but they also allow you to distribute your content, or portions of it, to other sites.

Have some content go to viewers. Submit videos, PDFs, and other portable content to sites that focus on these types of content, such as the video sharing site YouTube.

Market your brand at social media sites

Marketing at social networking sites is basically participating. Done right, when people see you, they see your brand and have the opportunity to get to know it.

Be transparent. Don't pose as a customer when you own, work for, or are affiliated with the company in question. Shills tend to be found out, usually sooner than later, and they give the company a bad reputation.

Create a profile. At social media sites that have member profile pages, create a profile of who you are and what you do. Or create a company profile. Keep it informative and within the rules for the site.

Bookmark pages. Bookmark your own site, of course, but also bookmark pages related to your field. Make your profile page a useful resource.

Link to your profile pages. Help search engines and people find them. Links to your profile pages from your site show that you're connected with the social media movement.

Participate and connect. Get known at the site without advertising. The ways to participate depend on the site but include linking, voting, and commenting. Earn yourself a reputation as a knowledgeable person in your area of business.

Stay within the website rules. Trying to promote your services where promoting isn't allowed or otherwise breaking the rules doesn't make you or your business look good. Contribute to the community, and the brand awareness you create will work for you in time.

Related blog articles

• Socializing Your Site to Success: Using Folksonomy to Build Traffic
• Web 2.0 for Webmasters

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