By Debbie Hemley
Published January 22, 2013

Are you looking to get started with social media marketing?

Do you want to reexamine how you’ve been using social networks?

In this post, I’ll cover 26 tips, an A-Z guide, to help you understand the backbone of successful social media strategies.

#1: Assess and Reassess

One way to assess whether to use one of the “big four” social networking sites as Samson Lov refers to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, is by looking at the statistics—number of users on each network.

Statistical data is an interesting factor to look at while you decide where to build presences. However, keep in mind it’s one of many perspectives. Some social networking sites may make more sense for your business than others. We’ll discuss this further in Tip #19, Start Somewhere and Start Small.

#2: Build a Group of Followers

Austin Considine reveals the “worst-kept secret in the Twittersphere.” He writes:

“That friend who brags about having 1,000, even 100,000, Twitter followers may not have earned them through hard work and social networking; he may have simply bought them on the black market.”

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are social media followers. Companies should think of followers as something they’ve earned—the virtual pat on the back.

Where you lead, they will follow… Image source: iStockphoto.

#3: Curate Content

The question about original content vs. curated content can be a little confusing at times for businesses starting out on social media. Bottom line, you need to do both. A good rule of thumb is the 80-20 rule—use 80%

Article source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/26-tips-for-getting-started-with-social-media-marketing/