It has almost become something of a cliché to say that the future of advertising in social media. However, there is a bit of truth at the heart of every cliché, and this one is no exception. The statistics tell the same story. Spending on social media advertising is expected to increase nearly tenfold over five years, from $350 million in 2007 to $2.7 billion in 2012. This is a market opportunity if there ever was one.

Here are 3 excellent ways to leverage the increasing power and popularity of social media in order to increase the visibility of your company and attract new customers.

Work the Relationship Side
The ancient Chinese philosopher Sunzi stated in his classic The Art of War that if you know your enemy and you know yourself, then 100 wars will be 100 victories. In a more modern context, this means that if you know your customers, then you will be much more likely to properly understand them, and to understand what they are looking for.
The rise of social media presents an unprecedented opportunity to know your customers, and to know exactly what they are looking for. Take advantage of this opportunity to create an open dialogue with your customers. Provide them with the relevant content that they are looking for, and maintain this dialogue so that it is open 24 hours per day.
With social media marketing, your immediate goal need not be to push products on customers. Instead, you can think about a social media campaign as akin to having an office emails system. It facilitates communication with your customers, and allows them to reach out to you.

By keeping these channels in place and open, you will ultimately see increased traffic levels, and increased business levels.

Social Media Is Not a Stand-Alone Goal
As an ever-changing beast, it is hard to even define exactly what social media is, nonetheless how you can effectively leverage it for success. However, social media is definitely dynamic. This means that your thinking about social media needs to go beyond simply making a Facebook fan page to drive traffic to your website to drive an increase in sales.
Instead, just try to link all aspects of your social media campaign together. So when you write a new blog post, include buttons to make it easier for people to share it via Facebook and twitter. Likewise, create some of your blog posts as videos, and share them on YouTube. By sharing across more channels, you create additional exposure.

Create Great Content (and Know How to Share it)
As it always seems to be, the final takeaway is that great content is king. And as social media is all about sharing, whether you will be successful in your social media campaign depends on whether you create content that is share-worthy, and share-able.

This is all about adding value for your customers. Look at it from their point of view. Don’t just talk about yourself or your business. Make a video or an article that your customers will like, and they will want to share with their friends, and you’ll get all the free promotion you could ever want.

As a marketer, it is always a good idea to use any possible medium which could lead to more exposure to potential customers, as well as establish one’s own business image. Social networks has made the promotion and branding process very much possible to do simultaneously, without having to spend tons of money separately on advertising and public relations campaigns. Twitter, one of the marketing “tools” of the recent decade, has made it possible for marketers to seamlessly provide information to their potential customers, and establish relationships at the same time.

For those who may not be familiar with Twitter yet, it is a free website service that allows users to share short nuggets of information (called Tweets) to their network of friends. These Tweets or updates may be sent out towards an entire friend network in real time. While Twitter is made purely for social purposes, marketers can ethically take advantage of this free service in order to generate website traffic, promote products, send updates to customers, share information related to business, and build one’s image online as a merchant. Here are some tips that could help any online marketer generate more leads and traffic from Twitter:

1. Start by getting your first 100 followers. If you already have a Twitter account for your friends and family, I suggest you create another account which is devoted entirely for your business contacts, such as leads, customers and business partners. The reason for this is that you don’t want to bug your friends and family with marketing content. You want to make sure that your promotional Tweets will only be sent to people who have a built-in interest on your niche or industry. Once you create your account, I suggest that you refrain from sending out any promotional message unless you have at least 100 followers. There is really no Twitter power if you don’t have any followers. So build your follower base first, by promoting your Twitter link to your existing business contact list or customer database.

2. Let your blog and Twitter account work hand in hand. Each time you have a new blog post, send a Tweet to your Twitter followers, informing them of your new blog post. In your Tweet, you can insert a few sizzle words just before mentioning your blog post link so that readers will be curious enough to check it out. Needless to say, your blog must contain links that point out to your main website so that your readers will eventually end up on your sales letter or lead capture page.

3. Avoid exchanging follows. There are people on Twitter who will offer you something like, “Follow me and I’ll follow you”. Lots of online marketers fall for this trap, but usually it is counter-productive. The reason for this is that the followers you get from such “exchanges” are not truly interested about you and your marketing information. They simply exchanged follows because they want you to check their marketing content. Think about it. If you have five hundred of these “followers” on your Twitter account, you’ll be flooded with more marketing messages all day than you can handle! So stick with those who genuinely want to follow you because they like your content.

Twitter has been a public site for awhile now, and many people use the short messages to keep in touch with friends and family. But Twitter is also becoming more utilized as an effective marketing tool by which you can promote your business. Twitter aids business owners due to its direct and instant methods of communication, and that’s a huge advantage to businesses who are Twitter-savvy.

The people who use Twitter are online anytime, day or night, and this will allow you to find your target market without much trouble. Twitter users tweet each other all the time, regardless of what time it is, since they live in every time zone. It is so popular today that it is even used as a search engine, and can locate topics that you might be looking for. The messages on Twitter are 140 characters or less, and it’s quite easy to use. People online who already use Facebook and Myspace enjoy Twitter because of this ease of use. It’s quite similar in “feel” to texting, and we know how popular that is today.

So, how can Twitter help you to market your service or product? People tweet about certain subjects when they are on Twitter, and this makes it easier to access a market niche that may be interested in what you sell. This will give you an advantage over less internet-savvy marketers, and it will allow you to get to know the people who follow you. 

Give Twitter a try, before you determine whether you think it will be of value to you. Otherwise, it’s hard to describe the leverage it gives your company in marketing your services or products. It will also give you a chance to market your brand and make it more popular. You may be surprised by what occurs after your tweets are re-tweeted on Twitter, because this stirs up viral traffic that will head your way. You won’t find this much traffic initially, but it can prove to be valuable in the long haul.

One example of a Twitter success company is Dell. They have great success with having their tweets go viral, and their ads have thus spread more rapidly, as they endeavor to promote new products. Viral marketing is difficult to measure in terms of return on investment, but it can definitely get your brand out there if you use it properly.

Twitter only becomes more popular every day, and the look of viral marketing online changes as re-tweets become effective and powerful tools for communication. The bottom line is this – if you know who your target audience is, and you know what they look for, and are capable of giving it to them, you will be astonished at the positive response, and you can reap re-tweeting benefits.

If your company has promotional offers or coupon codes, you can use Twitter to help you spread the word about them, and thus increase recognition for your brand. Especially in the economic times of today, many consumers look for deals and bargains, and you can use this tendency to attract new customers and retain established customers. Whether you are marketing a large campaign, or having a sale of limited duration, Twitter can help draw people to your site to check out those deals, and that’s the point of marketing, whether it’s free like Twitter or not. You don’t have to be a huge company with a full size marketing department to take advantage of Twitter to achieve success – businesses of any size can use the strategy of Twitter to help themselves.

 Use creative marketing techniques and understand your target demographic, and learn how Twitter works. Your business and your brand can be bigger and more well known, for the effort.