Social media marketing has a reputation for being an extremely complex advertising plan, but this is untrue. It is actually one of the easiest options out there and requires no fiscal investment. Using social media allows the business owner to interact on a more personal level with his or her audience and create a ripple through the internet. One simple video can turn into a plethora of traffic if the below advice is considered.

The number of followers is a measurement of your success in social media marketing. Many large companies with iconic names will get followers just because people like their product. Smaller companies without the iconic names there the number of followers your company has is a direct link to how successful your social media marketing is doing.

Learn the posting patterns on social sites. The peak traffic times for many of these sites are at 7 A.M., 5 P.M. and 10 P.M. and those are the times that you should be sure to post something new. If you post more than those three times, be sure that you are posting something unique and interesting, but limit the total number of times you post each day.

Find out who is talking about your products or your brand on social networks thanks to tools like Social Mention. This program searches through updates to show you what people have to say about your brand. You should notice more interest on one site than another as well as get genuine opinions about your products.

Videos are a great content for your social media marketing. Demographics show that video is the largest and fastest growing online application. You can make your old articles and posts into video presentations using screen capture and presentation tools available on the web. Add them to your YouTube profile and link them to your social media pages.

It is important to be involved in the newer large social media sites for effective marketing, but do not forget about the older sites. Social websites like MySpace and Craigslist have huge followings, and you will be missing out on a large market if you ignore them. Social media is extremely competitive and the older established sites still have market share

One of the advantages of social media marketing is that it allows others to advertise your products and services for you. To take full advantage of this, incorporate one-click links on your product and service web pages that enable visitors to like it on Facebook or tweet it on Twitter. It has been proven that recommendations made by friends are far more likely to convince potential customers to make purchases than most marketing tactics employed by businesses.

Gaining traffic is important, but it is more important that they take the step from traffic to customer. This can only be done if you create quality media and target the correct audience. Do not waste time or money trying to market to the entire online world when simple planning and the above tips can save you both.