Members who succeed.

1. Blogging: Your business blog is the powerful foundation for your social media marketing activities and can fuel the growth of your other social media activities.

• Consistent blogging helps you to rank high in search results
• Blogging helps you reach your target audience
• Blogging is a great resource for generating leads for your business
• Blogging helps you showcase your expertise
• Blogging allows readers to interact with you and feel as if they know you without ever meeting you in person, helping you build trust and friendships

2. Facebook: Facebook is a great platform for engaging and interacting with fans. Facebook allows you to develop a personal relationship with fans and understand their needs.

• Facebook can be used to drive traffic back to your Web site or blog
• Facebook is a great way to attract quality leads by creating promotions to increase your fan base
• Increase your email subscriber list by offering a sign-up form on your Facebook page
• Facebook provides a medium for fans to ask you questions and for you to pose questions for them to answer
• Posting pictures of your team members, community activities and news helps readers get to know you and your team

3. LinkedIn®: LinkedIn is a great resource for networking with others in your industry and potential clients.

• Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is complete and describes in detail what you do and what you offer potential clients
• LinkedIn allows you to grow your network on a large scale that would be impossible to do with in-person networking
• Create a LinkedIn business page and keep it actively updated and encourage your network to follow your business page to keep updated on what is happening with your business and reach your target market
• Join groups not only industry groups but the groups that your potential clients are involved and be active in the groups, answer and pose questions
• Testimonials and endorsements from customers will put your business on the short list when potential customers are evaluating providers

4. Twitter: Twitter allows you to engage with followers in real time. You can use Twitter to improve your customer service by responding to tweets about your company in a timely fashion.

• Twitter can drive traffic to your blog when you tweet new blog posts to your followers
• Ask your followers to retweet your posts and to increase your Twitter reach
• Twitter can drive followers back to your Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking platforms
• Follow reporters that you would like to connect with and develop a relationship with them by responding to their tweets and commenting on articles they have written
• Twitter can help you develop a relationship with the influencers in your industry

5. Email: Email is the workhorse of social media marketing. When subscribers sign up to receive your email, they are letting you know that they have a genuine interest in your business, what you have to say and what you offer.

• Use email to keep readers informed of your products, services and special offers
• Email is great for building long-lasting relationships with prospects and leading them down the road to becoming customers
• Send surveys to email subscribers to find out what their needs are and to find out if you are meeting their current needs and what you can do to improve your business
• Email can be use to send traffic to your blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube or other social networking sites you are involved
• Email is a great way to ask readers and clients to refer potential clients to your business.

There are many other social networking avenues that businesses can use to help grow their business, YouTube, Pinterest, Google Plus and Forums just to name a few. I have focused on the five most popular social networking platforms that are easiest to use and integrate into a cohesive social media marketing plan.