Social media is a relatively recent marketing tool and business owners are still exploring all the possibilities. Read this article and get started with your own social media marketing campaign.

Create profiles on social networks and familiarize yourself with the different functions available. If you decide to use Facebook, find out about tagging, events, checking in and other features you could use to your advantage. On Twitter, find the hashtags that are used by your audience or create your own. If you join other sites because they are popular among your niche, find out what people do on these sites and look for different ways to connect with your customers.

Update your social networks on a regular basis. You should post new content up to two or three times a week and more often if you find that your target audience checks social networks more than once a day. Adapt your content to your audience; write about topics your customers can relate to and use formats they will want to share with their friends. You should keep track of which updates are the most popular so you can create more similar content and get the attention of your audience again.

Find the right time to update your social networks. This depends on where your target audience lives and what kind of occupation they have. Most teens and young adults access social networks via their cell phones and will connect anytime, but another target audience might be more likely to check their social networks during their lunch break. You should have your customers answer to surveys about their social networking habits so you can post updates when your customers are likely to be online.

Do your best to interact with your audience directly. You should create polls or ask for people’s opinions on a topic related to your industry. People should feel safe about contacting you and asking you questions. You can encourage people to get in touch with you by listing your social network pages on your site and by being polite and helpful. Create a hashtag on Twitter and encourage people to tag you in their Facebook post if they wish to express their opinion about your products; reward these users by sharing their updates and giving them a prize to encourage more people to do the same.

Build some anticipation around your contests, new products and new campaigns. You should announce things in advance, create Facebook events, give a date for the launch of a new product and get people talking about your new releases or discounts. Find out more about viral videos and other online marketing techniques to put together a campaign that will attract the attention of your audience and make people want to learn more. Once you get people interested, you can ask them to subscribe to your social network updates so they can learn more about the campaign.

Use these tips to develop a solid social media marketing campaign and generate more sales. Plan everything carefully and give your campaign a couple of months to take off.