By Yosef Solomon on Feb 25, 2010

When looking at Social Media Marketing, it is sometimes difficult to identify the major elements that can benefit your company. Some automatically think Twitter and Facebook optimization are the keys to successful marketing tactics, but I look at them more as tools. Social Media Marketing encompasses a wealth of different approaches, strategies, and techniques that can work for different companies. In building a successful strategy, we must first look at the 4 important elements of Social Media Marketing and figure out how to implement them.

1) Market Research

Who’s consuming your brand? Who is your target demographic? What are you competitors doing different than you? Each of these questions can be answered utilizing the social web. For instance, let’s say you own a clothing line and would like to drive more potential customers to your website. You already have a Twitter account and Facebook fan page, but you don’t feel like they’re growing fast enough. You look at your competitors and notice that they’re fan pages and Twitter activity are growing exponentially. Why is this the case? I don’t the answer, but I can give you the solution. Do a competitive analysis between your pages/accounts and the others. Now, look at how your competitors fare against even larger brands. I guarantee you’ll notice similarities (contests, games, fan interaction etc…) that will give you insight on how to improve your social brand. I’m not saying blatantly copy your competitors Social Media strategy, but utilize these networks to discover untapped research.

2) Social Marketing

So the real reason businesses are so intrigued by social media is the marketing aspect. Being able to talk directly to your customers (and potential consumers) instantly is amazing. Companies are literally shifting their marketing dollars from traditional to new media marketing relying heavily on Social Media. Often times, the amount of spend is lower and more efficient than traditional billboards, magazine ads and TV commercials. When designing Social Media Marketing strategies, it’s important to keep in mind the process is ongoing and won’t without interaction. Simply setting up a Facebook and Twitter account doesn’t mean you’ve embraced Web 2.0.

3) Customer Relations

We’ve all heard that “Content is King,” but I’d like to add that “Conversation is Queen.” At the end of the day, we’re basically just talking to our customers. The worst thing you can do is ignore your customers. It’s almost the equivalent to asking them not to buy your brand. When companies reward their consumers and acknowledge their loyalty, we start to see brand allegiance. Consumers will then start to go out of their way to make purchases with your company. Amazon.com has proven this theory successful in their attempts to socialize the online shopping experience. Offering solid recommendations and rewarding frequent users has become a staple to their success. Jeffery Gitomer put it best in his book: Customer Service Is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless.

4) Reputation Management

Social Media makes every company accountable for their transparency, therefore it’s imperative that you start thinking about reputation management. What are people saying about your company online? How are you perceived by your customers? How do I get rid of that negative stuff about my company on Google? Each of these are valid questions that exist when thinking about reputation management. Social Media Monitoring is one of the most important tools when dealing with reputation management (Lucky for you I made a list of 7 superb monitoring tools) They alert you whenever your company or brand is mentioned online. Staying on the pulse of your online presence will allow you to be the first to respond to your brand. Rapper Kanye West has managed his personal brand effectively this way. Most of his fans turn to his blog to get the real answers, instead of listening to whats reported about him on the news. The fact that he’s built up this authentic rapport online has allowed him to be his own publicist.