After being an active member of many different social networking platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter, I have decided that it is time to broaden my scope of the whole thing.  I am enrolled in VAClassrooms Social Marketing Specialist Training Program by Craig Cannings, (follow him on Twitter).  After the second module only, I have decided it was money well spent.

The thing that scares people about social networking on the Internet is the usual fear of the unknown.  “What can it do to help me?”  “I don’t want to be in contact with people that have naked pictures on their profile.” “It’s a waste of time, it won’t benefit my business.”

All of these fears are baseless if you go about your networking in a planned and consistant fashion.  You need to figure out what you want to tell certain people in the world, how you want to tell it and what you expect in return.  After a well-thought out plan, social networking can be a boon to your pocket book as well as your contact database and brand recognition.

Starr Hall wrote an interesting article titled 5 Reasons Your Fear of Social Networking is Misplaced in Entrepreneur.com.  In her article, she dispels five reasons that others gave her for not participating in the Web 2.0 social networking phenomenon.  All of the reasons that Starr lists can also be quelled with a sound and reasonable social marketing plan.  It really isn’t as hard as it sounds although, like any other thing, it’s best to leave the basic structure to someone who is trained in this field.  Do an Internet search for the term social marketing services and check out a few.  They will be able to cull information from you and put it in a comprehensive social media marketing plan.  You can start very slowly if you like and see what happens; you will be adding more avenues before you know it.  A social marketing specialist not only will help you draw up your plan of action, they can also set up your profile on all platforms, post your tweets and messages and monitor the sites to let you know when and to whom you need to reply.

So stop making excuses about how traditional marketing is getting more expensive and harder to do.  The best way to reach your particular niche market is on the Internet. Get involved with social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, just to name the Big Three.