Marketing in a digital, fast paced age is getting tougher and tougher. Where does your target audience hang out today? Yesterday it was MySpace, today it’s Facebook. Twitter’s coming on strong and so is LinkedIn. What about YouTube, Delicious, Digg, Stumble Upon? The list goes on and on. There are literally thousands of Social Media/Web 2.0 sites to choose from. We’re drowning in possibilities!

So why DO you need a solid social media content strategy now more than ever? Without a solid strategy, you might be posting here and there with little to no results. Then after a couple of weeks or months of this, you lose interest and stop posting. Then your content strategy (if you can call it that) completely goes to the wayside. Once this happens, you stop attracting your audience and stop getting leads eventually.

Now I know that’s a pretty bleak picture, but I’ve seen it happen time and time again. Small business owners are really really busy. They typically serve several roles in a single day and throwing just one more thing on their plate makes anything new just seem impossible.

Let me propose a simple content plan for you in a step by step fashion. This is exactly what we do here at Web Unlimited so feel free to take it and run with it.

Step 1 – Write Content

This is the hardest part really. Sit down with 30 minutes to an hour and write an article that speaks to your clientele. If you own a landscaping company, write tips about the season that is coming up and something that home owners should be thinking about. You get the point, but just write something that talks about problems that your clients might be facing and present a solution. (That’s what this post is doing by the way)

Step 2 – Post the Content to Your Blog

What? You don’t have a blog?? You need one now. It doesn’t need to be a fancy one like WordPress. It can be something as simple as a page that you add to your website. Whatever. What matters is that you’re going to be adding content and that it’s connected to your website. Drive all traffic to your website – not somewhere else.

Side note – Never take content away from your blog. Search engine spiders don’t like that. Always add.

Now that you have a blog, post the content piece you just wrote. This should really only take a few minutes. Oh and be sure to proof read or have somebody else look it over before you post!

Step 3 – Post a Link on Facebook to Your Blog Post

Now head over to your Facebook page and add a post on your wall along with a link to your blog post. This will be something like “Wondering how to (insert your blog post topic here)? Read our latest blog post below!”

Keep it simple but sell it. Don’t ever just post the link to your wall without writing a little something. It would be comparable to walking up to a stranger, handing them your business card and then walking away.

Step 4 – Post the Link on Twitter

Now head over to Twitter and post a link to your blog there. The audience for Twitter is just a little different and you need to limit your post to 140 characters. The facebook post as written above might work for both Facebook and Twitter.

Step 5 – Post the Link on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a becoming quite a nice place to post to. Think of it as Facebook for professionals. The other great thing about LinkedIn are the group discussions you can participate in. Post the link to your profile, then share it in any group discussion areas you participate in.

Step 6+ – Rinse, Repeat, Lather for Other Social Networks

Since there are so many different social networks and places your target audience might hang out, I couldn’t possibly cover them all. So choose a social network and post the link there. We like to use social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Delicious and Stumble Upon.

Other Possibilities – Re-purpose Your Content

At this point you can re-purpose what you just posted and do a quick PowerPoint video presentation discussing the content and record it with Jing and then post it to YouTube. Be sure to post the YouTube video on your blog in a new post and then link to that post on Facebook, Twitter and any other social networks you might be using as well.

Now What?

That’s it. Six steps and probably 1-2 hours tops to attract and educate your target audience. Do this once per week and you’ve got a very solid social media content strategy. Add in targeted keywords in your articles (blog posts) and you’ve now leveraged your content for multiple purposes.

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If you’re interested in SEO and getting ranked, Web Unlimited offers Houston SEO at competitive rates and has a proven track record with our own websites as well as our customers. SEO is a very important thing and can get very very expensive if your SEO firm isn’t doing their job correctly, so make sure you choose the correct firm.

Email Web Unlimited at [email protected] or call us at 979-696-2500 today to get a free SEO consultation and let us formulate the right strategy for your business.