Do competitive research

First, use Google Trends (www.trends.google.com ) to identify major trends in your industry.  Then set up Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) to monitor the latest news related to your industry in other cities. Get there first. Bring in new concepts and techniques to your local market before your competitors do.

Perform searches on the major social media networks and see what your competitors are doing with their social media. Browse through YouTube (www.youtube.com), Facebook (www.facebook.com), Twitter (www.twitter.com) and Linkedin (www.linkedin.com) to see what your competitors are up to in real time. Use TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com) to organize tweets related to your industry.

Finally, go to review sites and search for reviews on both yourself and your competitors. Listen to your customers and identify market opportunities and unique selling propositions that appeal to your market segment.

Join the networks

Set up profiles on major social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Make sure you use custom backgrounds and layouts that are consistent with your brand. First impressions are important, so avoid using the stock background colors and layout templates as they may make you look like an amateur. Start participating in conversations about your brand and industry.

Start a company blog

Install a blog on your own domain if you don’t have one yet. A good one to use is Wordpress at (www.wordpress.org). Avoid getting a free blog at a blogging site that is not part of your domain. Otherwise, you may wake up one day and find that your blog has been falsely accused of spamming and banned or deleted as a result. 

Now that you have a blog on your own domain, start writing content that your readers will enjoy. Focus on topics that are relevant to your industry and your clients. You want to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.

Syndicate – share your content

Use tools such as Ping.Fm (www.ping.fm) to syndicate your content across multiple social networks. This will save you time and make your life so much easier. You should also make it easy for your readers to help promote your content. Install plug-ins such as TweetMeMe (www.tweetmeme.com) and ShareThis (www.sharethis.com) to make it easy for your readers to share your content.

Track your return

Create a spreadsheet that logs the time you spend writing for your blog or participating in social media. Next, set up goals and funnels in your Google Analytics along with custom campaign links for each social media campaign. Shorten these links with Bit.ly (www.bit.ly) or vanity links (through a .htaccess rewrite – ask your tech guy if you don’t know what this is) and use them whenever you tweet or post to your blog. Track your results and see if your efforts are providing a positive return on investment. Cut the losers loose and pour more resources into the winners. Run plenty of split-tests to make sure your conversions are optimized.

Got questions? E-mail Martin at martin@smartt.com or read his blog at http://www.marketingsmartt.com/blog