Social Media Marketing Resources

Earlier this week Koz Khosravani wrote an in depth article on Social Media Marketing Strategies and Benefit. As a follow up to that post I thought I would share some tactical resources that can help small business owners and real estate investors get started in social media. Of course the real value is learning how to use these sites and services to optimize your marketing reach and effectiveness.

Stay tuned for a series of Free Social Media Labs that I will be conducting in the New Year.

Feel free to use this list as a starting point as you engage in social media marketing.  This is just a starting point as you will soon see there are many social media sites that you can use to engage with customers and grow your business.

1. Buy Domains you will need a website
2. Host your sites (so you can build a site with the domain you bought)
3. Most hosting companies will give you a Wordpress blog that you can install on the site. Set one up so you can start blogging.
4. I use The Thesis Theme for WordPress on my personal sites (the look and navigation of the site) it is very flexible and comes with a ton of support. There is a small cost for this theme but worth the money.
   
    
5. Set up a profile on Active Rain - If you are starting a real estate businesses (this is a real estate focused social network)
6. Set up a profile on Facebook (if you don't have one)
7. Set up a Facebook Fan page for your business
8. Set up a profile on Linkedin
9. Set up a Twitter account. I suggest use your own name or that of your business (people will find this profile which is what you want)
10. Create a Squidoo page for your business - basically a one page website and great for being found in search.
11. Set up a YouTube account (use your business name) if you plan (and you should) on creating videos to market yourself/business
12. Set up a Google alert for your name and your company name (you will need a google account to do this). This will deliver an email to you when the term you set up is used online.

A friend of mine runs a small business website and SEO services company.  He helps entrepreneurs get set up online.  Feel free to check it out and tell him I sent you...

If you have other sites you think are "must haves" or specific questions about the links above leave me a comment.