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Social Media

Whether it is Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, blogs, or communities, Smart Solutions will help you navigate the options and strategies behind social networking including how to get the most value out of your investment.

Social networking is about online conversations. It allows you to have real-time customer feedback and interaction. People will look for and join social networks that create meaningful, relevant experiences with other like minded individuals.

Smart Solutions will help you:

• Define goals - Just like any marketing endeavor, it is crucial to define a strategy and identify what you hope to achieve or promote.
• Determine where you want to focus your social networking energy for the greatest ROI.
• Create and maintain profiles/sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.
• Develop a blog or blog website on WordPress.
• Submit your sites and pages to search engines.
• Submit your blog to blog directories.
• Add social networking tools to your website.

Smart Solutions will add social networking sharing widgets to your website or blog. These widgets help your visitors promote your website. An AddThis Social Bookmarking Widget allows your users to bookmark your site easily and share it with friends via email. In addition, analytics and sharing reports give you a clear understanding of how people are bookmarking and sharing your content.

Some things to consider:

• It may be free and easy to sign up on a social networking site but it there is a time cost. You must keep it current by posting new interesting content, replying to visitors questions, and monitoring activity.
• Focus your time and energy on a few social networking sites rather than all. Find the sites that work best for your industry and service. For example, many small businesses prefer to invest in a LinkedIn page.
• Go where your customers are. Just because social networking is "in" doesn't mean your customers are using it.
• Most importantly, do not forget that social sites should be about service — not all about "marketing". Your readers need to find value in the information you provide.