Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing

Interested to learn more about social media and how you use it? You’ve come to the right place. Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing is a series of tutorials which teaches you how to utilize the power of social media channels to get more exposure, supporters and customers for your website and business.

This is a resource page which includes links to all the specific articles, which are categorized below according to a chronological order.

If you’re a complete beginner, start from the first article listed and read downwards.

Your comments are always welcome in the original article page and I do encourage you to join in the discussion. Should you have any queries, feel free to email me.

If you find this page useful, feel free to share it with others.

1. Social Media Marketing in a Nutshell

We’ll take a look at the central concept which should underlie all your social media marketing efforts. Understanding the big idea behind social media marketing is crucial because it gives you the building blocks you require for guidelines and procedures which drive action.

2. The Benefits of Social Media Marketing: Why You Should Learn and Master it

Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic. For those who don’t understand or see the value of social media websites, here are the main benefits of marketing through social media channels.

3. Social Media Marketing Campaigns: How to Set Goals and Define Prospects

Determining your goals and target audience is a fairly important preliminary process when it comes to social media marketing. This is not just plotting objectives for the sake of being organized; your goals directly determine the best strategy to take and the community to target. This article talks about the common goals for social media marketing and includes suggestions on how you can determine your target audience.

4. A Beginner’s Guide to Social News Websites

A powerful catalyst for viral marketing, social news websites are an excellent way to disseminate ideas and attract attention, traffic and links. These social media channels which will give you a platform to showcase your content and website to a large audience. This article will offer some tips on how to pick the right social news community, along with various strategies you can use to promote your website through these channels.

5. 40+ Social News Websites You Can Use

You don’t have a lot of time on your hands. You want a community that gives you fresh news on topics you care about. You want something that sends prospects and traffic while branding your website or business. You want a social news site with a long term returns on investment. Here’s a list of some of them.

6. Relevance and Distribution: Two Essential Factors in Social Media Marketing

Marketable content can come in many forms: for example, you can create text articles, videos, images and online tools. The medium is not of primary importance. It’s really how you frame the message so that it appeals to the audience. To increases the chances of social media success, you just need to focus on two main factors: relevance and distribution.

7. Social Media Networking and ROI: How to Maximize Value and Minimize Cost

Social media networking is the process of interacting with other individuals through the specific social media tool or community. For example, you could talk to people with similar interests in a forum or communicate with them through a more fragmented platform like Twitter. Whatever method you choose, there are usually four main goals.

8. Building a Popular Social Media Profile: 7 Essential Characteristics

What are some qualities which contribute to the growth and eventual popularity of a social media profile? Assuming that you aren’t a niche celebrity and don’t have a well-established brand name, what characteristics of your profile should you develop for maximum social media presence?

9. Developing Tactical Knowledge on Social Media Websites: A Three-Part Strategy for DIY Marketers

Before you embark on any campaign, its is important to know what you are dealing with, in order to best develop a course of action. Knowing the social media channel inside-out is paramount to leveraging it for benefits. The three steps mentioned in this article will give you the necessary foundation, from which you can start to devise future strategies with a strong likelihood of success.

Additional Resources

Here are some more posts which not part of the article series. They are each categorized according to the topics they cover.

Marketing Strategies for Social News Websites

1. Social Media Marketing Strategy #1: Recycling Linkbaits for Viral Success

Re-submission or re-insertion of link baits and valuable content into the social community gives your website a second chance. Didn’t make it big before? Now you have another shot. Note that there are also some concrete reasons why you should consider resubmission as a promotional strategy.

2. Social Media Marketing Strategy #2: The Mullet and Link baits

Where you choose to place your link bait matters. Do you want your regular site visitors or readers to see it among other content? Or would you prefer to only get the attention of a specific social media audience? This marketing strategy is known as the Mullet..in other words, business in front and party at the back.

3. How to Get Strong Referral Traffic from Social Websites

For these websites, the key to effective viral marketing not just lies in creating attractive on-site linkbait, but rather the ability to create linkbaits which grow into powerful sources of referral traffic through social websites.

StumbleUpon: Introduction and Detailed Guides

1. A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Traffic to Your Website

I wrote this mini guide on StumbleUpon because I thought StumbleUpon had enormous potential in maximizing brand exposure. Included are some personal observations on using StumbleUpon to drive traffic to your website, as well as some strategies you can adopt to retain StumbleUpon visitors while monetizing your website.

2. How to become a top StumbleUpon User (Or Why You Shouldnt Bother)

Just exactly how do you actually become a top StumbleUpon user? Instead of writing out another generic how-to post which struggles to crack StumbleUpon’s algorithm, let’s take a step back to see if all this focus on being a top stumbler really matters in the first place.

3. StumbleUpon Networking: How to Share Content and Build Relationships

This article will examine the various ways of using StumbleUpon to share content directly with others, while studying the numerous benefits that arise when one disseminates web pages and shares opinions in this manner. There will also be various tips on how you can use this StumbleUpon feature to network and connect with audiences that are interested in you or your website.

4. Five Ways to Grow Your StumbleUpon Network: An Ode to Altruistic Stumbling

The number of StumbleUpon users who stumble your webpages has an effect in how much traffic you will receive in the long run.The other obvious benefit to having many friends is that your StumbleUpon experience will be enriched and more fulfilling.

5. StumbleUpon Optimization: Leveraging Photo Stumbles for More Web Traffic

This article on photo stumbling will offer some detailed tips on how you can use and optimize your images in order to increase the potential of receiving more stumbles and hence, visitors to your website.