Social media marketing is the latest and greatest tool that can help you get the most out of the opportunities the Internet has to offer. With more people signing up for social media sites every day, and those sites finding new and innovative ways to help people connect, your business has a great new tool to read the market, raise your profile and reach more customers than ever.

The flip side of all this, which it’s both easy and dangerous to ignore, is that the field of social media is so new, and changing so fast, that plenty of businesses don’t know how to use it well. Without a good social media marketing strategy, all the work you put into your social media campaign can end up being ignored — or, worse, just make you look foolish.

First, you need to remember that social media is just a new way of sharing information, and good solid social media marketing means having good content to market. Build a strong web presence: A site with strong, fresh content that people can visit, with pages they are likely to share themselves.

Social media, then, should be the last part of a broader online strategy, starting with keyword optimization on your website and tools like strong landing pages and blogging to highlight your site. Social media can’t work for you unless you have something good to say, so make sure you’ve laid the groundwork for it.

Once you have a strong brand and solid content, you’re ready to start amplifying it. Social media’s strength is the personal connection that it offers between you and your customers. On Facebook, for example, set your page up like a landing page on your website, use every available tool to help promote your business and ask them to click the Like button. On Twitter, make sure you fill out your bio and use tweets to promote your newest products, the latest trends and whatever you’re doing right now. Above all, be creative and engaging, and give people an experience they’ll want to point their friends to.

When you’ve set up your social media presence, it’s time to start promoting it. Share your business’ Facebook page with your friends, and then ask them to share it with theirs. Make a page that lists the Twitter handles of your employees, to personalize your business. And provide information that your followers will find interesting and useful, so they’ll be inclined to share and retweet it.

Finally, mind your tone. It’s important to present yourself as an expert and show that your business is a leader in your field, but don’t use social media to sell people. Keeping a casual atmosphere will help draw in potential customers, so just link back to your website, talk about what you’re up to, and let your products sell themselves. If your Facebook or Twitter page reads too much like an ad for your business, you can end up turning people off.

The advantages of social media are simple: It’s where your customers are. One of every eight minutes spent online is spent on Facebook, and nearly half of Facebook’s users share content. Half of Twitter’s active users are following products, brands or companies; two-thirds of American Twitter users are more likely to buy brands that they follow, and more than three-quarters are more likely to recommend them.

With numbers like this, social media marketing has huge potential to help your business grow. But remember that social media can only amplify the rest of your online content, so make sure you’re using it well.

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