Have you been told you need a social media strategy for the New Year but no idea where to begin? Is social media just a trend or is it going to bring in valuable business? These are the questions everyone is asking.

Dell is just one company that enticed buyers through social media with Twitter leading to $3 million of sales since the launch of @DellOutlet in 2007.

‘This shows that money can be made through the social network in which people post and subscribe to mini-messages, called "tweets."’ (Stefanie Nelson, Dell Twitter account manager)

Research by econsultancy and bigmouthmedia found that an overwhelming majority of companies (86%) plan to spend more money on social media in 2010.

But where will you spend it and what will you do?

Social media include various forms of user generated content and the collection of websites and applications that enables people to interact and share information online.

Complicated? Well here is a list of things that are part of the social media:

• online forums (e.g., DigitalPoint) 
• blogs (e.g., WordPress) 
• social networking sites (e.g., Facebook) 
• social bookmarking sites (e.g., Digg)
• video sharing sites (e.g., YouTube) 
• photo sharing sites (e.g. Flickr)
• streaming sites (e.g., Ustream) 
• user reviews (e.g., Amazon)
• crowdsourcing (e.g., Wikipedia)
  

Don’t try and tackle them all at once, pick a couple of platforms which your customers may also be using and give them a go. Make sure you write interesting, valuable and relevant content that your customers will want to read and begin your social media strategy engaging in two way dialogue.

We have just hosted a Digital Marketing Day which covered valuable information on social media and how it can really help businesses, click here to see photos of the event or click here to see any upcoming courses that may interest you.

Which social media platform is working best for you, have you seen positive results?

Gemma