Everyone knows that advertising isn’t cheap. This is why social media is becoming a very important advertising channel. When done right, this low-cost “advertising platform” beats out all the other advertising methods hands down in terms of cost and effectiveness. A small or medium business should have six social media elements, according to Heather Lutze in a recent article at Tech Journal South called “Social media advertising strategy: six profiles you must have.”

Called the “Social Media Advertising Formula,” Ms. Lutze says there are six essential platforms that business owners must have to garner the potential of social advertising. Each platform offers you specific ingredients that only it can offer, so you’re not duplicating your social media effort when active on each one while targeting your message to targeted audience. Additionally, each platform allows you to optimize your presence and message best suited to its strongest points, furthering the effectiveness of your presence online. Targeting your audience and optimizing your presence equal best social advertising potentials.

Let’s look at the six.

• LinkedIn. This business profile site ranks well in search engines and is a great platform to keep business associates updated on your business events. To optimize your profile on LinkedIn, select one core keyword and use it frequently, but not without being spammy or sacrifice user experience.
• Facebook. This is a closed community so it does not rank in search engines. It is an effective place for personal profile online, but you can also use your business keywords to optimize your marketing effort. To optimize your profile on Facebook, select one business keyword and aim to become the subject matter expert in this community.
• MySpace. This is an open community, ranks very good in search engines, and allows full profile for businesses. To optimize your profile on MySpace, again use a specific keyword for your business, and take advantage of the search function to create an effective MySpace outreach network.
• YouTube. This is the biggest and most well known video sharing platform, and still is the best for viral marketing campaigns. You can run marketing campaigns for your own business and for your clients as well. To optimize your YouTube campaign, use each video to target specific keyword, and use the same keyword in both the video title and its description.
• Blog. You blog is one of the most important and easiest platforms to get yourself ranked high in organic search engine results. Blogs are also a great tool to build trusted followers as you build your (or your business’) own reputation. To optimize your blog, use specific keyword(s) for each post and use the same keywords in the meta title, meta description, and in the body of the post itself. Check out Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
• Twitter. This is the hottest micro blogging platform currently. Though it has several limitations, Twitter can be an effective tool for business as many can attest. Twitter posts are open so they also rank well in search engines. To optimize your presence on Twitter, brand your profile to reflect your product/service expertise, while using keywords in all your Twitter posts.

Read more on Heather Lutze’s “Social media advertising strategy: six profiles you must have.”

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Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
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Must-Have Formula For Business Social Media Advertising