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Post by Eric Brantner

If you’re still waiting to see if social media marketing is worth your time, I have one question for you, what are you waiting for? Forget about all of the talk predicting social media marketing is going to play a big role in the future; it already is.

Forward-thinking companies are using social media to gain invaluable connections with their audience and to increase their online visibility. And they’re reaping the benefits of their marketing efforts.

Authority, inbound links, visibility, and trust are just a few of the things active online brands are earning through this form of marketing. So, are you ready to jump aboard the social media train? Here are 10 steps to creating a successful social media marketing strategy.

1. Do Your Research- Every successful marketing strategy is based on good research. You can’t just blindly go to a social media site to submit your content and expect immediate success. You need to find social media sites that fit your niche. For example, if you’re trying to promote your medical business, you should find sites where health related articles tend to be popular.

2. Interact with the Community- The biggest rookie mistake in social media marketing is to completely ignore the community. It’s called social media for a reason. Take advantage of the social platform by interacting with the community. The closer you become with community members, the more likely it is that they’ll help promote your content.

3. Write for Your Audience- This is Writing 101, but many people tend to ignore it. If you want your content to go hot, it has to be tailored toward the audience on the social media site. When you’re interacting with the community, get to know their likes and dislikes. Also, take note of what type of stories tend to get the most attention. You’ll see patterns develop in the types of themes and content that consistently go hot.

4. Be Relevant- Relevance is the key to social media marketing. Don’t believe me? Just go to the front page of Digg or any other social site. The vast majority of the top content is related to late-breaking news. Be the first to break a story in your industry; or, give your unique insight on a hot news item.

5. Keep it Short- Internet users don’t like reading long passages of text. They tend to scan online content rather than taking the time to fully read it. For this reason, you need to accommodate their reading habits by keeping your content short and easy to scan. Brief paragraphs and bold, descriptive headings are great ways to make your content more scanner-friendly.

6. Focus on Design- When users come to your page to read your content, are they greeted with a clean, welcoming design? If not, they might just turn around and leave your site. Remember, it’s not just enough to have great content; how you present it is important as well. Use a design scheme that’s easy on the eyes and that assists the reader in scanning the content.

7. Stop Trying to Sell- Another social media marketing rookie mistake is to constantly try to sell your products. Sure, the ultimate goal of marketing is to promote your brand, but you’ll never gain any respect on these networks if you’re constantly pimping out your products. Instead, contribute useful content that the community can learn from.

8. Create Great Headlines- I don’t care if your article is good enough to be the cover story in Time Magazine. If it doesn’t have a great title, it won’t get any attention on these sites. Think about it- thousands of users are submitting content to these sites all day long. What makes someone click on a post to read more? An eye-catching title.

9. Help Out Others- This goes back to #2 and #7. If you want to become a top user on a certain social media site, you have to help others out. Don’t just submit and promote your own content. Find useful articles from different sources that your audience will enjoy. By promoting content that’s not yours, the community will begin to see you as a great resource for relevant information.

10. Convert Hot Content- One mistake many social media marketers make is to not capitalize on hot content. If you’re fortunate enough to have a piece rise to the top, you need to make that attention last. How can you do this? By creating another great post to follow the hot one. That way, when visitors come to your site to read the popular post, they’ll see you have new content. Ride that wave as long as you can!

The bottom line with social media marketing is there are no shortcuts to success. If you put in the time and effort, your brand will experience numerous benefits. Set realistic goals for your marketing campaign, and stick with it to the end.5