By David Carleton

As I’m sure you’ve already discovered, it now takes more than your typical newspaper ad, radio spot and networking meeting to get the sales you used to get.

Why? Because the dynamics of the market have changed. Consumers are better educated and have more choices than ever before. In addition, there are fewer buyers out there and more intense competition from everywhere to capture their business.

It seems as though the worldwide recession changed the rules of marketing. Companies are now finding that the marketing tools and techniques considered valuable and effective just a few years ago, are no longer bringing in the sales they once were.

More and more companies are seeking out low cost “guerrilla” marketing techniques that they can implement quickly and easily. Social media is an easy and affordable way to do just that if you have the strategies in place.

But social media marketing is very different than traditional marketing methods. Don’t think for one minute that just because you have an in-house marketing staff or outside agencies handling your public relations, creating brochures or managing your ad campaigns that they automatically know how to create and manage your social media marketing efforts.

Social media marketing and traditional forms of marketing require different skill sets and strategies. Don’t assume that just because your agency can write great copy, and are whiz-kids when it comes to search engine optimization or creating websites that they can handle your social media marketing efforts.

I am often asked, “I don’t get how I can use social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to help my business.” To help you get your “creative juices flowing, ” I have listed 20 different ways that social media marketing can help your business. Future articles will go into more depth on how to get achieve results.

The Top 20 Business Reasons to Use Social Media Marketing
1 - Improve customer and prospect relationships
2 - Conduct inexpensive yet effective market research
3 - Build brand awareness, authority and credibility
4 - Drive traffic to your website
5 - Ability to obtain insight into targeted niche markets
6 - Find new distribution channels
7 - Improve search engine rankings through link building
8 - Find and research targeted decision makers, prospects, customers and contacts
9 - Monitor reputation - what are people saying about you or your company
10 - Attain expert status for you, your company or your brand
11 - An effective form of communicating with past, present and future clients
12 - Share information used to educate prospects
13 - Spy on your competition
14 - Provides increased visibility for you, your products or your brand
15 - Generate more leads
16 - Get more referrals
17 - Find joint venture partners
18 - A new vehicle to post PR, events and articles
19 - Provide better customer service
20 - And of course - INCREASE SALES!

To your continued success.

David Carleton

Street Smart Sales and Marketing