First up, I’m hopeful for these books:

Social Media Marketing for Dummies

I know it’s a “Dummies” book – but they aren’t all bad. In fact, sometimes these are the best tools to introduce novices to new techniques and ideas. They’re simply written and easy to follow, and the format makes it easy to find exactly what you want or ingest bite-size chunks when you have time.

If the Table of Contents of Social Media Marketing for Dummies is any indication, I’m particularly interested in Chapter 4: Launching SIM campaigns. I’m hoping it actually contains some practical advice, and not just a bunch of platitudes and 10,000-mile view. This hope might be overly optimistic… but I’m going to buy it and see.

Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day

The other book I’m optimistic about seems to be a much more likely option. Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day appears to have some nice, focused, practical advice on developing, implementing and measuring a social media campaign. This is the updated second edition, but the first addition has a lot of positive reviews, and the Table of Contents is very promising.

I’m buying this in addition to the Dummies book, and while I intend to look at the Dummies book first, I’m more excited about what this one might contain. If I’m lucky, this will have the information and strategies I want to convey to my clients, so I can just recommend the book instead of reinventing the wheel every time I work with a new startup.

Promising General Social Media Books

What I’m currently looking for is books that will help my clients develop and execute an integrated social media strategy. But I’ve inadvertently discovered a couple of books that appear as though they might offer some good tips on developing a brand, creating good content and engaging followers and customers. I’m looking forward to checking these books out as well, although the priority isn’t as high for me. But if you’re in the market for this type of book, check out:

• Likeable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook (& Other Social Networks)
• Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)

I’ll be working my way through these other books in the meantime, and hope to have a solid recommendation (or begin drafting my own social media marketing book) by the end of the week!

So far, nothing is quite what I’m looking for. I might have to write a book about the topic myself! But that’s where my spare time is going at the moment, so for now I’ll leave you with this strategy from a popular online marketing article (for developers, but it applies to everyone) that can help you prepare your online marketing campaign:

• research what bloggers are saying about similar tools
• create a list of pertinent keywords
• google for each of them and see what the resulting links have to say
• search for them on twitter and see what people are saying about those things
• List product benefits / differentiating factors
• build a list of personas (descriptions of fictional users that represent a majority of your target market)
• ask why each of the personas would care about each of the features
• Define specific goals for the month before launch, first month after, and 3 months after launch
• should be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic…and Timely (SMART)
• dollars, users, number of reviews, etc
• Define marketing channels
• brainstorm strategies for each that are relative to goals
• * evaluate expected return and prioritize (measure the expected impact, time, and cost each idea)

In the meantime, I read this article this morning that had some useful information about building and keeping audiences as a niche content site. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Vikram Goyal, founder of CraftGossip.com, has to say – but he does make a lot of great points that I think should be useful for some of the clients I’ve consulted with in the past few months.

If you’re not sure how to build and keep audiences, this is a great place to start. We’ll look into the topic in more depth in the coming month, with some first-hand advice and useful exercises to help you craft a compelling marketing plan!

My client responded with something that made me very happy:

I think it’s a good idea – timely content for real time communication. We still want to be relevant on fb and twitter!

This is something that so many individuals and small businesses don’t understand – they focus on the be all and end all – SEO. But when you focus too much on SEO and promoting yourself, you sometimes sacrifice substance – and that is ultimately a losing proposition. Relevance is too important to overlook.

SEO Without Substance is Fail

SEO is a tool you can use to drive people to your site and help promote your business. But SEO without substance can only get you so far. If there’s nothing relevant for your user to consume when he or she gets to your site, they’ll click away somewhere else and you’ve lost that user. The same thing goes for your marketing campaigns; the most successful campaigns strike a balance between self-promotion and providing relevant, substantive content for your users. Focus on SEO and self-promotion to the exclusion of relevant content, and your users will abandon ship.

How to Strike a Balance

Ideally, your communications – be they on your site, on your blog, on Facebook or Twitter or via email – should consist of a balance between self-promotion and relevant, timely communication. It’s ok to promote yourself sometimes. Your users expect it. You’re a business and you have to make money.

But reward your users for sitting through the self-promotion. Give them relevant content they can connect with sometimes – even it that content is completely void of self-promotion. This will keep them coming back in spite of the self-promotion. And if you do the self-promotion right, it can be perfectly-balanced blend of marketing and relevant content.

I personally use a ratio of specific types of content to keep the reader from growing bored with too much of one type of content, and that includes a small ratio of fresh, timely, relevant content that isn’t necessarily related, or may be only tangentially related, to the target site.

For example, the client in question above is a retail website that specializes in niche products for women. The article I posted today included a list of outside-the-box, romantic ideas to celebrate Valentine’s Day. The article was generic enough that it could apply to women or men; ladies who read it could use the suggestions to surprise their guys on Valentine’s Day, or they could give it to their guys and say “Do this for me!”

Nothing in the article directly promoted the site; none of their products were mentioned by name and it may not make them a single sale. But it does keep them relevant, fresh and timely on social media, where they post links to their content, and it’s a great resource that women can pass around amongst themselves. If every women who reads it passes it to five of her friends, with some note like “you and your boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/husband/ should try this” – that has now spread awareness of the site exponentially. Some of those people are bound to be in the target demographic, and will hopefully come back when they need the products that this retailer sells.

Determining What’s Relevant

When determining relevance, you have to decide what would appeal to your target audience. Yes, you may occasionally want to produce content unrelated to your primary objective as long as it appeals to your target demographic. But you don’t want to produce completely unrelated content – then the relevance is lost because you in no way serve the target demographic.

One of my clients, for example, sells blog posts to mortgage websites. Most of the blog posts are completely unrelated to the mortgage industry, but are relevant to people who are looking to buy or sell homes. These articles may include things like tips for moving, advice for shopping for a home, techniques to winterize a home, how to spot energy-efficient housing – none of these are directly related to obtaining a mortgage, but they’re all relevant to people who may be buying or selling a home. And people who are shopping for a mortgage are typically buying or selling a home. So the information appeals to the target demographic, even if it doesn’t directly promote the business.

Conversely, you wouldn’t want to write an article about how to shop for a demolition contractor on a website for a flower shop. The content has absolutely zero relevance for the target site, and even if you attract visitors with the content, there will be nothing for them to do on the site. (Unless it serves as a reminder that tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, and it’s time for the person trying to hire a demolition contractor to send some flowers to his sweetie!)

Relevance is largely determined by the target audience. Think about the types of content that would interest your target audience, and give it to them. It’s even better when you can tie it back to your product or service.

Offer Timely, Personalized Communication

It’s a proven fact that psychologically, in most cases, consumers would rather do business with a person than a company. Personalize your company with timely, personal communication. Take time out around the holidays to write your clients a personalized “Happy Holidays” email or article. Offer a Valentine’s Day-related article, if your demographic supports it. Mention recent news articles in your area, and give your opinion.

It’s always a good idea to inject a little personality and timely content into your consumer communications. This demonstrates to your clients that there is at least one real person at the helm, and makes them want to do business with you – the person – even if they’re impartial to your business entity.

As a bonus, with timely communications, there’s always a chance they can be re-shared – which expands your reach. An article with personal commentary about an issue important in your local community is more likely to get re-shared around the community than some impersonal marketing material. This spreads awareness of your business, and gives you reach you literally can’t pay for.

Social Media Does Not Stand Alone

One thing that many businesses today don’t realize when they start a social media marketing campaign is that social media does not stand alone. You can use it to interact with your clients, but you still need other, content-based points of contact. Social media campaigns can be a great supplement for email marketing campaigns, routine blog posts, press releases and other content relative to your business. But using social media to the exclusion of these other marketing tools will cost you money and business. The right marketing plan features a combination of channels.

Good Content Makes Your Website More Visible

Good content makes your website more visible. You can Tweet about your content; you can link to it on Facebook and Google+. If it’s really good, other people will link to it and share it with their friends. That’s how things go viral. But all the social media efforts in the world are futile if you don’t have good content that people *want* to read and share.

Boost Your Search Engine Results

SEO is a constantly-evolving field. The SEO practices of a few years ago, such as keyword stuffing and link-farming, won’t get you anywhere today – and can even get your site blacklisted. Instead, search engines today are looking for content relative to your business that naturally ranks for certain keywords. Good content writers have been practicing organic SEO all along, and that’s now what search engines are looking for.

Adding content on a regular basis boosts your search engine rankings. It expands the potential keyword basis that users can use to find your site. And good, high-quality content will get linked to by people who want to share it – increasing your site’s authority and boosting your search engine results. Good content is the new SEO hotness.

Consider Your Content an Investment

I see more and more businesses looking to churn out cheap content for something like $1 to $3 per 500-word article. For that price, what you’re most likely to get is something cut-and-pasted from somewhere else. You might get articles spun using article spinning software, but they won’t read naturally and probably won’t offer anything to readers. I have two words for businesses looking to go the cheap route: don’t bother. You won’t boost your site ranking or attract users with crappy content, and you can get your site blacklisted from Google for duplicating content.

Instead, think of your content as an investment. If you spend more money up front for high-quality, original content – you’ll organically boost your search engine results, give users a reason to stick around your site and share your content, and establish your authority in your field. This is an argument I’ve been making in favor of high-quality content for years; but the search ranking algorithms are finally catching up with me.

Think of the money you spend on good content as an investment for your business – and watch the dividends pile up as you expand your customer base and increase your sales.

1. Email

Email marketing has been around for a long time, and many businesses now eschew it as old news. It may not be new or exciting, but it remains one of the most effective forms of contact. Effective email campaigns to opt-in email addresses continue to produce higher conversation rates than any other marketing technique. All you need to do is give people a good reason to opt-in, create effective messages that target your audience and send them out at the appropriate intervals.

2. Social Media

Social media was the new hotness a year or two ago, but now it’s become an accepted part of many businesses’ online presence. If you’re a major player, it’s surprising to find that you don’t have a Twitter account or Facebook page, and more and more businesses are now adding Google+ and LinkedIn, too. Effectively utilizing social media can be a great tool for drastically expanding your scope. But social media requires a lot of up-front time investment, and the return on the investment for most businesses is not proportional to the resources that go into this marketing avenue. This is one of those things that you should maintain because clients expect you to, but in general you’ll find more bang for your marketing buck elsewhere.

3. Article Marketing

Article marketing involves submitting articles relative to your field of expertise to article directory websites. Popular article marketing sites include eZine Articles, Hub Pages, Squidoo – more than a hundred article directories exist, some of which have a unique style and flare, and others are little more than link-building directories. Article marketing can provide you with inbound links and improve your SEO. However, avoid spamming article marketing sites, as Google frowns upon duplicate content. If your article shows up in a hundred different places, your article marketing efforts can actually hurt your website’s reputation.

4. Press Release Marketing

Press release marketing functions much like article marketing. You can submit your press release to one of many press release directory services, or submit it directly to various news services. In an ideal world, a major news service will take your press release and run with it, providing you exposure to thousands of new viewers. But doing press release marketing right takes an experienced professional; too many press releases read like an ad for the company, and don’t get picked up by news services.

5. Landing Pages

A landing page, or lead capture page, is designed to get your audience to take some action; typically to sign up for an email campaign or create an account. A landing page should always have a clear call to action, and many businesses customize a landing page for a specific traffic source – making it easy to see which traffic source results in the largest number of people responding to your call to action, and also making the landing page more effective because it’s tailored to a specific source and audience.

6. SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of taking a website and optimizing it to rank highly in specifically-tailored search results. SEO may include internal HTML and code tweaks, content changes designed to target specific keywords, and website structure changes. Effective SEO boosts the page rank of your site for certain keywords, and makes it easier for your customers to find you in a Web search.

7. Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a type of internet marketing designed to increase traffic as a result of paid search engine placement. SEM techniques may include contextual advertising, paid placement and paid inclusion. SEM for a niche site may be relatively inexpensive and effective, but it’s difficult to compete in SEM for popular, high-demand keywords.

8. Inbound Linking

Inbound linking is an online marketing technique that has a couple of benefits; effective inbound linking can increase your page rank, and it also makes it easier for your customers to find you. Inbound linking can be achieved in a variety of ways; through posting responses in forums related to your product or service; through paid inbound linking services and through things like guest blogging and other exchange-type interactions. It’s important to keep in mind that if you pay for an inbound linking service, the wrong link-building program can hurt your page results, and even get you banned from Google; we’ll explore this further when we talk about Black Hat marketing techniques a bit later.

9. Affiliate, Reseller and Associate Programs

These programs are designed to incentivize the promotion of your site or services. Reseller programs make it easy for people to sell your products for you in return for a cut, while affiliate and associate programs incentivize people to drive traffic to your site. These programs are underutilized in online marketing, and have substantial benefits to the right business models.

10. Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways are a great way to spread the word about your company and drastically increase your potential audience in a short time. Targeted contests and giveaways, such as gift cards for your business or products that you sell, can generate a smaller pool of well-qualified leads, while more generalized contests and giveaways, like iPad giveaways, can help you expand your reach but fewer of the leads will be qualified.

11. Blogging

Blogging is a great way to build an online presence, establish authority and credibility, and expand your SEO. But blogging tends to yield slow results, and it can take months of steady blogging before you gain traction. Generally, scheduled, routine blogging forms the backbone for SEO; it’s an integral part of a marketing plan but doesn’t necessarily yield high conversion from the blog itself. Unusual or highly controversial blog posts, however, have the opportunity to be picked up and shared on sites like reddit that can get your content in front of thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of viewers.

12. Video Marketing

Video marketing, when done well, can be extremely effective. Video is the most socially-shared content on the Web, and video marketing can dramatically increase your reach and audience. If a video goes viral, you could be looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions of hits in a matter of days. Poor video marketing, though, doesn’t contribute to your reach, and can actually hurt your business.

13. Podcasting

Podcasting is another avenue you can use to reach out to your potential audience. Like blogging, podcasting provides you an opportunity to establish authority and credibility, and can help draw potential audience members. But podcasting represents a significant time investment, and should only be undertaken under certain business models and with very clearly defined goals and scope.

Ultimately, these tools can help any business reach a wider audience, and should form the core of your marketing platform. The right combination of tools in the right proportions varies depending on your business, but an experienced marketing professional can help you explore which tools are right for you.