Using social media marketing is a great way to reach out to millions of customers and stay in touch with them. Read this article to learn more about social networking.

Start by gathering data on your customers’ social networking habits. You need to know which sites are popular among your target audience, how much time your customers spend on social networks, when they are more likely to connect and what kind of content they like to share with their friends. Use surveys to find out more about your customers’ use of social network. You can then start creating profiles and pages on the sites your customers use and develop a campaign that is adapted to their habits.

Developing a good presence on social networks can take some time. You can generate some attention from your audience by launching your social media marketing campaign with a contest or a giveaway. Require people to connect with you on social networks to get a chance to win a prize. You should present connecting with you on social networks as a way of having access to exclusive information, discounts and prizes. Make sure you talk about your new campaign on your site, blog and in your newsletter and let people know in advance about your project to generate some anticipation.

Place links to your social media profiles on your site or blog. These links should be visible and you should encourage people to find you on these sites to ask you questions or give you their opinion about your products for instance. Place social media buttons on your articles so that your readers can easily share this content with their friends. You can also allow people to comment on your content by logging on their Facebook account by installing a plugin on your site or blog.

Post new content regularly. Your audience will be reminded about your business and products if you post updates two or three times a week. Find out when your audience is likely to be online so you can post updates at that time. You can either share articles you just posted on your site or blog, discounts, pictures and videos of your products or share external links to content that is relevant to your topic. Remember that quality is important; people will stop paying attention to your updates if you cannot offer useful information and discounts regularly.

Keep track of your results to improve your campaign. Some social networks such as Facebook give you access to statistics on your traffic, but you should also keep track of how many comments you get or how many people shared your updates with their friends. You should notice that certain updates get more attention that others; create more similar content to see if this content get as much attention or ask yourself what you did to create some anticipation before posting these popular updates.

Using social networks to promote your business can really make a difference. Apply these tips, find out what your competitors are doing and give yourself enough time to develop a good campaign.