When thinking about Social Media Marketing (SMM), many entrepreneurs and marketing directors of small and mid-sized businesses see a time vacuum. In fact, SMM can drain a lot of time if you don’t know how to manage it. One of the vital keys to effectively leveraging SMM for your company is to develop a strategy for efficiently distributing your message and engaging your audience without having to log into a dozen, or more, different sites.
The key: L3 and Sync
When it comes to distributing your message, your blog can be a great hub for distributing your message, as well as engaging your audience through various other social networks. In a great article at Web Marketing Today, Lorrie Thomas suggests the L3 and Sync method:
- Link to your other social media – on your blog, be sure to provide links to the other social media outlets you leverage. These don’t have to be large images, but a simple icon linking to your profiles is sufficient.
- Link to social engagement tools – this is the re-tweet button, a link to your RSS feed, the Facebook Like button and Social Bookmarking tools. Simply, you’re giving your audience all the tools, effectively placed in your blog, to pass along your information to others, and help reach a wider audience.
- Link to other’s social media – Provide links to other blogs and social profiles your target audience may want to read and engage. The rule of thumb here is to point to people and organizations who will not take business away from you. Point to industry hubs, partnered vendors and complimentary companies, but not competitors.
- Sync your blog to your other Social Profiles – most social media outlets will connect to your blog (especially if you use WordPress, Typepad or Blogger). This allows you to produce one message, and then distribute that message across multiple channels.
The underlying key to Social Media Marketing is having a plan, goals, and a method of tracking your effectiveness. If you’re lost in how to put these three things together for your business, partner with an Internet Marketing Firm who specializes in quantitative Social Media marketing.