Guidelines.

5 general guidelines for Social Media Marketing..

1. Connect! When using social media marketing, you must be able to connect with people. And also, be good at it!  Useful information about connecting.

2. Don't be biased & don't purposely try to upset people in your actions. Your websites and forms of campaigning yourself/product should be done tastefully and attractively. No one wants to jump on board with something/someone unappealing.

3. Have fun with your site or form of selling yourself/product. Websites that promote bands/products/services should be interesting to look at. They need to make you intrigued or at least make you want to click around! If a site or add can make you smile, that is a plus! Social Outbreak!

4. Do not mix business with your personal life. Unless you are a musician, than in many cases, people enjoy hearing personal announcements, tweets, etc! If you are promoting a product or your business, keep it real, keep it on topic. Business pages should be all about the business. That's not saying they cannot be fun, but do not get ahead of yourself and think people are interested in what you are doing over the weekend. Unless your client base is THAT personal with you. Be professional and only state the things you would want to hear from a business/product/service.

5. Update and stay positive! No one wants to check out a site and see outdated information or negativity that they do not agree with.

Social Media Marketing allows a lot of personal connection which is a very big positive. Being able to interact with your fan base/client base is a big turn on for the campaign! It gets people involved and can also help you out a lot with suggestions and ideas! The people voice counts too! You receive instant feedback and can gain a lot of face time! You must also be reliable and trustworthy. You control your clients a lot by your information and credibility. Would you take information from a site that can never get it right? You must make sure any website you use information off of is not a scam!

Blogger, Amanda, had some very good points of the pro's that come with Social Media Marketing.

Getting Social.

Social Media Marketing can be defined in many ways and used in even more. This blog right here is a Social Media Marketing tool. It is a way for people to send out messages that contain video/picture/audio information about any given topic expressing feelings or advertising. The internet can take something small and campaign it into something big. You can get your thoughts and words out there. Whether they are about yourself, a band, a product, a person. Anything. It's a way for the world to see things in a more influential way. People use all sorts of tools to spread information about things.

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Youtube, etc. All of these popular social networking websites are not only used for friendly interaction and watching hilarious videos of people doing stupid things, but they are also used for getting names out there. Some very famous musicians were discovered through Myspace and Youtube. Who is to say these social networking sites are all useless? The internet is crucial in this day and age. Especially for marketing products. Imagine a world without the internet, TV, magizines, newspapers, or radio. How would we find out about new advances in...well, anything? News wouldn't exist nor would it spread. We would all be living day by day in a world without expression and discovery. Not only that, but there would be no sales in products. Most purchases come from people who see the advertisements. It catches their eye. What we hear about them is what really triggers us to make the investment as well. If none of the word of mouth existed from the Social Media Marketers, we wouldn't buy anything because we wouldn't know of it's existence.

A good example of how Social Media Marketing works is Machine Gun Kelly's Flash Mob at Southpark mall that was spread via twitter to promote him being signed to Bad Boy records and establishing how much he loves his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio. He spread the word of this mob on his twitter account and that spread rapidly bringing hundreds of screaming fans to Southpark Mall. This was not only a promoting tool for him but also a fun way for him to connect with his city regardless of the fact that the mob had ended by the time it started. With advances in technology, not only was the flash mob tweet viewable on computers, but also on cell phones. Social Networking sites can spread news faster than word of mouth.

Machine Gun Kelly posted..

"Today we flash mob NO MATTER WHAT! 5pm at SouthPark mall in the foodcourt, wear disguises, dont move to you hear 'Cleveland' play then RAGE!" The flash mob made national news and is still being discussed. Machine Gun Kelly was arrested and he kept fans up to date with all that was occurring. For someone who is hardly famous, he sure marketed himself out very well to get some very up close and personal footage from the media.

http://www.socialmediamarketing.com/

www.youtube.com

http://www.dmnews.com/social-media/topic/246/

http://www.twitter.com/

http://www.cleveland.com/morris/index.ssf/2011/08/post_9.html