Top 5 Free Social Media Marketing Tools
Posted on Mar 16, 2011 in Blog, Blog Tips, Internet Marketing, Social Media | 2 comments
Are you overwhelmed by the amount of social media marketing options available on the internet? I know the feeling – I get overwhelmed myself, so I’ve decided to focus more on 5 major sites that I consider to be the top 5 social media marketing tools!
Traditional marketing methods are becoming obsolete and quickly being replaced by online social marketing techniques, so these sites should not to be ignored, especially when the only cost to you is your time. The top five social media marketing tools I’m recommending are all free to use! They include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Squidoo. You don’t need to be a technical guru to use them, either!
I’ve purposely placed Facebook first in the list because I believe it to be the number one social marketing portal to make use of. Given that Facebook has a larger population that many countries (presently over 700 million users as of the date this post was written), I’d say having a Facebook page should be your number one priority when it comes to setting up social media marketing solutions. Facebook is an invaluable source for reaching people because, despite all the controversies that surround Facebook and its sometimes questionable privacy policies and practices, it remains the most visited website on the internet. People just keep coming back daily to see their friends’ updates (I myself am guilty of doing this). One of the biggest benefits of Facebook is being able to set up pages to represent your company, services or products for FREE. Setting up a page isn’t very difficult either, and from there, you can drive traffic to the page, get people to “like” the page, easily post links, notes, information, even your blog posts, and drive traffic to your website, as wel as making yourself and/or your business more visible and accessible. Some online marketers believe in it so much that they will only drive sales and campaigns through Facebook pages. In fact, even email marketing campaigns are not as successful these days as Facebook page posts, so this is definitely an option you should be paying attention to and making use of!
Twitter took the world by storm, and it’s right up there with Facebook when it comes to one of the most important social media tools to use. It’s really easy to use, doesn’t require a lot of time, and involves sharing small tid-bits of information called “tweets” (140 characters at a time, to be exact). This is generally called “micro-blogging”. It’s basically a social networking service that allows people to network and interact with you. The more followers (subscribers to your feed) you gain, the more people potentially view your mini-posts. You can include links in your tweets as well, which are usually shortened addresses so as to not take up so many characters in a tweet, and from there lead people to your website, blog, promotions, etc. Twitter is also fun to use, so yet another option to take advantage of!
YouTube is still the most popular online video sharing resource on the internet. The power of YouTube as a social media marketing tool is often underestimated, and it’s not as hard as you think to create videos. Something to always be careful with is to never use copyrighted material – original content is key, and content that can be categorized as a solution to someone’s need, such as tutorial or how-to video on your areas of expertise. I myself need to make more use of this tool, and am planning on doing so in the near future. With millions of users and visitors on YouTube daily, this is yet another social media opportunity not to be missed!
LinkedIn is a professional social networking site with over 80 million members, and it’s growing fast because it’s become a very reputable social media portal for professionals. LinkedIn allows you to connect with “trusted” contacts, and from there you can share knowledge, tips, ideas, and opportunities, links, etc. with a network of professionals within your niche. You can join groups that chat about your areas of expertise and network that way. You can even find a job through LinkedIn! It’s geared towards more business-oriented people, and is a bit more of a serious site, but it’s another important social media networking oportunity to take advantage of!
Squidoo is a site I recently discovered, and have been pleasantly surprised at how simple it is to work with. Squidoo, originally created by Seth Godin, is a social community website that lets you create and share pages filled with all kinds of information on any subject you choose – from text to videos to links and so much more. These pages are called “lenses”, and you can even make money from advertising on your created pages, so if your pages becomes popular and starts earning ad-related revenue, Squidoo will split those profits with you. Squidoo also gets indexed quickly by search engines, so it can really help drive more traffic to your own site. It’s another social media marketing winner to make use of!
Which ones will you try first?
There you have it – my top 5 recommended social media marketing websites! If you feel overwhelmed by the amount of options out there, then start with these 5, one at a time (perhaps in the order of this list), and work your way through them and beyond! Social Media Marketing is the new generation of marketing – it’s less expensive than traditional marketing (often times free), and all it requires is a little time and dedication to be used successfully!
Don’t forget to look into using Hootsuite to make it easier to manage some of your social media solutions! Hootsuite is a web-based social media management tool – it’ll let you manage many of your social media profiles, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Which social media sites do you use most often? Do you have favorites? What are your recommendations? Share your thoughts – I’d love to know your opinion!
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Ive looked into Squidoo before, but found that many pages were full of rubbish… wasnt sure that I wanted to spend much of my time there…. but you think differently? Interesting. I may have to go back and see if things have changed….
Hi Courtney! Squidoo does have a lot of pages that can potentially be irrelevant, but so does any other site. It ranks well with the search engines, though, and will also give you backlinks to your own site (if you include links to your site), in addition to being an extra place where people can find you – that’s where its value is.