The marketing world has changed significantly in the past few years. If you are not employing social media to market your brand, your business may be suffering. This article explains some of the steps you should take in order to let social media help market your brand.

First things first: create a website. Whether you pay for a “.com” website with just the title of your business or brand before it, or you make use of a website that you can create for free, make sure the title of your business or brand is apparent and recognizable in the URL. If you want to increase exposure of your brand, it is important that it is visible in the most obvious sense.

A great way to increase brand recognition for your business is by starting a blog. Again, make sure the name of your business or brand is in the title of this blog, so that readers associate the blog with your business. You can employ this social media marketing tool to track your audience. The answer to who is reading your blog could also be the answer to who your marketing should target.

Tweet. Twitter has become a very popular tool for social media marketing and it looks like it’s here to stay. Tweets are like status updates, with a limited amount of characters for each, keeping the posts short and sweet. You can make use of this social media website to get promotional messages out into the world wide web, further increasing the exposure of your brand.

While websites such as Twitter and Facebook may appear to only be for person-to-person connection, they can be used for so much more. Join Facebook and you can create a page for your business that fans, patrons, users or “friends” can “like”. Using a tool like Facebook to increase brand recognition is a proven strategy that has helped many businesses.

Facebook and Twitter are not the only social media websites that you can use to market your brand. If your business is not yet listed on Google and Yelp, list them. If they are, claim them so that you can manage the information that is being shared about your brand. These websites not only make information about your brand accessible to users, but also make information from users accessible to you. Customers can post reviews about your business, which gives you valuable feedback about your brand.

A key ingredient to successful social media marketing is participation. Unlike traditional marketing, social media is not a one-way street. Gone are the days when you gave information to your audience and hoped that it got through. Social media gives you the opportunity to interact with your audience. With this gift comes great responsibility. You must actively participate on social media websites if you want to make use of their full potential.

While traditional marketing still has its place in brand recognition, social media marketing has become the most popular platform for businesses to get their names out there. Follow the advice in this article and increase your brand’s online presence.