Today’s BlogAid guest post is from social media guru Dana Lynn Smith, also known as The Savvy Book Marketer. Her tips and info are so good that they work for everyone who promotes online. BlogAid highly recommends her Get Connected e-book for internet marketing success.

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Social media can be a great promotional tool, but you’ll save time and be more effective if you do some planning before you dive in. Below are some steps for developing an effective social marketing plan.

1. Think about the other promotional tactics you are already using and how social media fits in with them.

2. Decide how high a priority should be placed on social marketing, compared with other your marketing activities. How many hours a week can you devote to it?

3. Determine what target audiences you want to reach through social marketing. For example:

• Potential new customers
• Key influencers (people who can introduce/recommend you)
• Peers and other experts in your field

4. Set objectives, describing what you hope to gain by marketing through social media.  Here are a few examples:

• Increase visibility and name or brand recognition
• Establish yourself as an expert in your field
• Develop relationships with others in your field
• Drive traffic to your website (directly and through enhanced search engine optimization)

5. Based on your objectives, set specific, achievable, and measurable goals for your social marketing activities. Here are some examples:

• Add five new incoming links to your website this month
• Double the traffic to your website within two months
• Increase your opt-in mailing list by twenty five percent within three months

6. Develop your branding

• Get a good quality headshot photo, in low-resolution format, to use in all online marketing
• Decide what “user name” you want to be known by online.
• Write standard bios in several lengths.
• Create an online signature for emails and online forums.

7. Determine which social marketing tactics are the best fit for your product, your audiences, your objectives, and your available time. Social marketing activities can include:

• Social networking (such as Facebook and LinkedIn)
• Microblogging (Twitter)
• Online forums
• Expert sites and wikis (Squidoo, HubPages)
• Media and content sharing sites (YouTube, Flickr)
• Social news and bookmarking (StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious)

8. Decide how you will measure the effectiveness of your social marketing efforts. What metrics will you track and what tools will you use to measure them?  Below are some examples of metrics you might track:

• Friends or followers on social networks
• Articles or pages posted on expert sites or article sites
• Business contacts (peers, influencers, media, potential partners)
• Weekly unique visitors and return visitors to your website and blog
• Subscribers to your mailing list and blog
• Visitors to your website and blog
• Inbound links to you website and blog

9. Implement your chosen social marketing tactics, one at a time.

10. Evaluate your progress periodically. Can you tell which activities are generating the best results? Are some activities taking up too much of your time? Make adjustments to your strategy as necessary.

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Excerpted from Get Connected: Build Your Business With Online Networking, by Dana Lynn Smith. Learn more about how to use social networking tools at www.GetConnectedBiz.com