If you’re relying solely on email marketing to get your
information to market you’re falling behind at the speed of sound. The same
goes for relying heavily on article marketing alone. So say most of the leading
Internet Marketing experts. Popular consensus is we must use social media marketing
incorporated into other methods if we want to be a serious player in the game
of online marketing.

This can work for almost anything
Whether it be for books, information products, art, brick
and mortar businesses or just about anything that requires getting the word out
to your market the rules have changed and continue to do so every day.

Truth be told, there are countless trains of thought about
how to use social media marketing. A great example was one of the panel
discussions on Social Media Marketing at NAMS3.

Experts agree
Considered to be one of the top Internet marketing
conferences around, leading Internet marketing experts like Willie Crawford,
Jeff Herring, David Perdew, Denise Wakeman, Lynn Terry, Nichole Dean, Sid Hale,
Bob the Teacher, Kevin Riley, myself and others talked in great length about
how to effectively use social media marketing to achieve optimum results for the
least amount of effort.

Each expert brings a wealth of information to the table in
that we are constantly studying the latest and greatest information available. We
do this through our own mentors, mastermind groups, other experts information
products, sitting on panels, attending conferences and more.

Yet, for many, knowing the right thing to do can be very
confusing with all the information (some great and some plain garbage) that is
available. Take Twitter for example.

Experts disagree
During one panel discussion here’s what three experts said. “I
use Twitter to connect with people and be very casual without any overt
promoting.” Another expert said, “I overtly promote on Twitter and it works for
me.” Yet another said, “I use Twitter to feed into my other Social Media
avenues.”

Who’s right? Actually, all three are. Each has found a way
to make various aspects of social media marketing work. Even though they may
disagree on the #1 method, they all agree if you are not using it, you are
falling behind at a very rapid rate.

Something else we all agree upon is your blog is an
essential part of your Internet presence. Why? Because of the SEO a blog offers
as well as the ability to “feed” information in from various sources such as
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other locations. Additionally, blogs
offer incredible information speed to market distribution and reach.

The beauty of Social Media Marketing is the viral aspect
which equates to high visibility within niche markets. Not one of us felt
otherwise on this.

Let’s say you are an author. You might be wondering what
this has to do with promoting books. Actually, everything. Here’s why; Social
Media Marketing offers a global reach to potential readers as well as lowers
marketing costs compared to any other type of marketing. However, to make your
efforts worthwhile, you must be strategic at all times. To not do so is to miss
great opportunities.

It’s about the mix
As mentioned blogs are very important in the mix. They need
to be at the hub of what your social marketing efforts include. From there,
everything else feeds into your blog. You can build a wonderful following with
your blog by writing and posting short articles, post excerpts from your books,
put book trailers up for your fans to enjoy and much more.

Based on the blog being your hub,  the idea is to drive every other part of your
Social Marketing efforts back to your blog.

Here’s how it works. Say you post your book trailer on
YouTube. You then use the embedded code from your YouTube video in a blog
posting. Once you have the blog posting done you do a tweet about the video
with the permalink in the Tweet so that you are driving readers back to your
blog.

You can also take the blog permalink and post on your
Facebook wall to drive people back to your blog. If you belong to groups in
Facebook, you can post a short note about the video with the permalink driving
people back to your blog.

To optimize your YouTube position, be sure to put the
permalink from your blog posting at the beginning of the video description. Use
the http:// at the beginning of the link to make it live. This way, with one
click readers are right back at your blog.

This is a process that can be done in literally 15 to 20
minutes a day. To really gain visibility for you and your books, add this to
your daily activities. Within a very short period of time you will definitely
see an increase in your blog traffic.

Your blog must be optimized in order to gain the greatest
benefit when someone visits the location. Set it up in a way that people know
what the blog is about, that you are the owner, and some way for them to
subscribe to your blog. You can use a free service like FeedBlitz or
FeedBurner.

Without the above mentioned essential elements you could
miss readers for future books you write. Miss readers, you miss buyers.

The same would apply to virtually any type of solopreneur,
mompreneur or entrepreneur.

Want to know some of the most effective social media
marketing methods you can implement quickly? If you said yes, then join me for
my By Invitation Only Private Group Coaching session on February 18, 2010 at 3
p.m. PDT. Click here to learn more.