The whole point of this guide is to teach you how to increase web traffic
to your business by using social media, but it is absolutely essential that
you first understand how to use the various social media to that end.
Here are a few things to help keep you in the right frame of mind:
Information and Awareness
One of the first things you need to remember about social media is the
distribution of information.

If you are launching a program, starting a promotion, offering discounts,
looking for employees, opening a new line of products or have anything
important to say, then social media will be one of the quickest and
cheapest ways for you to get that information out into the Internet. This
is also a facet where social media shines, since people can pass along this
information on their own social networks.

Engagement and Discussion One of the main draws of social media is giving the consumer the ability to easily communicate with both the business and other consumers.

A smart consumer of the Internet age no longer takes advertisements at
face value. He goes online and starts from there, and social media allows
you to communicate with these people on a near real-time basis.
You always have the option to filter or block discussions if they don’t go
as you’d like them to. Just keep in mind that they can and will discuss an
issue on a separate website that you will be unable to monitor. This is
why it would be better that you see what frustrates your customers
yourself and address the issue in a timely manner.
Support and Assistance
If people have problems, one of the first things they do is look for
someone to help them – and social media could be a cheap and
accessible tool to let that happen.

Social media is a cheap, easy and convenient tool for people to seek
solutions to problems that they may encounter and answers to questions
that are nagging them. This is especially useful for small businesses,
where the need for expensive customer care services is virtually
eliminated by using social media instead. One or two people will be more
than enough to handle things until the business grows big enough to
need and afford larger customer care services.
Networking and Recruitment If you are looking for people to help support your business – like
partners, suppliers or employees – then social media can help you out
there as well.
Not only will you be able to bring additional business to your website,
but you could also use an established social network to get additional
Competitiveness and Relevance
If you can use social media to get customers your way, then you can bet
that your competitors can use it too.
This is why social media can be a very useful tool to spy on the
competition. Are they launching a product with new features? What
problems are their customers experiencing? How are they setting up
their own social media marketing strategies? Keep an eye on your
competitors and you will be able to modify and present your own
products and services in a more relevant and competitive manner.
Trust and Assurance
Everything that has been discussed earlier will ultimately lead to one
thing – the trust of the consumer. This is perhaps the main reason why social media is so effective in
marketing circles. It is also the reason why other businesses just can’t see
any traffic increase when they use social media.
Remember that you are dealing with intelligent people that have
something to say. Learning how to properly engage and communicate
with them will mean the difference between a successful social media
marketing campaign and a total waste of time and energy.
Now that you have a general idea of how social media works as a
marketing tool, it’s time we got down and dirty with the first social
medium: Facebook.