People often ask me why they should participate in this new form of marketing, social media marketing, when all they can really see that it addresses is the young people amongst us, their parties and what you had for supper last night! How can this possibly be something serious that is going to get me new business, make sales?

Here below are 5 great benefits that you might want to consider when you first decide to dip your toe into the online marketplace, using tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.

• social media marketingFirst and foremost it makes you stand out from the crowd and the noise going on around your competitors. Carried out correctly, you create the buzz about you and your business, rather than others in your market sector.
• Branding becomes simple across all platforms, so that your name is constantly in the forefront of people's minds.
• Social media marketing is a simple way to get going online. The key to the success of your ventures is consistency. Show up regularly and often. Let people know that they can rely on you, your services and advice.
• If you treat it rather like your High Street shop front with a wonderful window display enticing customers to come in and take a look at what you offer, you will be pleasantly surprised at how others respond to you. Your next step then is responding back to them, answering their queries, and continuing the conversation!
• Facebook and Twitter are both excellent tools to manage immediate customer service. Even the local leisure centre has answered my queries over a class being phased out in a timely and courteous manner, which suggests that they will look into my concerns and try to effect changes where they can.
• Incorporate Facebook and Twitter for your customers into your marketing mix and encourage them to communicate directly with you.
• Increase your website traffic by linking through from your other social media sites such as LinkedIn and Youtube. Curiosity to learn more will drive your potential client to click through to more information. Help them by making it easy to learn what they need to know and to showcase your expertise.
• Lastly and by no means least today, make use of a range of social media tools that can help reduce your marketing costs. All of these tools mentioned above can be corralled into working hard for you 24/7, freeing up time for you to concentrate on other areas of your business.

Knowing how your customers want to communicate with you will help you get in front of the hungry crowd. Making sure you have what they want to eat will guarantee they are looking at your offers, not those of your competition!