As social media experts know, more and more businesses are now making use of channels such as Facebook and Twitter to advertise the goods and services they offer.

At the same time, however, recent studies have revealed that many of these businesses are still not knowledgeable enough about channels like Google+ and Bing to create and implement effective marketing strategies. With this idea in mind, it is important for individuals who are interested in making effective use of platforms like Pinterest and StumbleUpon to learn the secrets that can help their businesses grow.

Ten Social Media Secrets You Don’t Know

1. Social Media Is SOCIAL!
Having success on a platform like Twitter is not as simple as simply tweeting links to the product pages of your website. Individuals who use these mediums thrive on interesting and meaningful discourse, so engaging your audience through strategic devices like interactive conversations and questionnaires can be integral to the efficacy of your advertising.

2. Knowing Which Platforms Your Competitors Use Can Be Advantageous

The fact that your competition has had success through a specific social media channel could mean that you will, too, but not necessarily. This means that you should take the time to learn about the platforms your competitors are using and evaluate their strategy.

3. Your Website Content Is King

Generally, social media strategies include providing links to your website or blog where people can learn more about the goods and services you offer. And while you might think that cool-looking images and bright colors are the key to engaging your audience, content is really king. And that’s why it’s important to ensure that your content is interesting, informative, well formatted, and grammatically sound.

4. Share Buttons = Free Marketing

Share Buttons, tiny widgets that enable your visitors to share your content with other people, should definitely be a part of your marketing strategy because they are free to implement and require no effort on your part. Your customers can click the Share Buttons and pass data along to people in their networks.

5. Headers Help

As various studies regarding online reading have revealed, most people do not read online content in its entirety. Rather, they scan pages in search of the information they want. With this thought in mind, you should optimize the content on your web and blog pages to accommodate your scanners. Headers, which offer your readers a brief summation of the paragraphs that follow, can help readers quickly discern what you’re talking about.

6. Branding Counts

While many businesses know that associating a specific slogan and image with their products and services is an effective offline marketing strategy, they are not implementing this technique online. Yet marketing your products through branding efforts works in the online world also. So before you start tweeting links to your product pages, be sure that you implement your best branding techniques.

7. Timing Matters

Just because the online world is alive and active 24 hours a day does not mean that everyone is always online. For example, studies indicate that the best time to tweet data in order to reach a large number of people is between 8am to 7pm. People who did so witnessed a 30% increase in engagement.

8. Specializing Can Help You

Although diversification across a plethora of channels can help you, focusing on just one (for example, Twitter) can be equally advantageous. This is the case for several reasons, including the fact that specializing affords you the opportunity to fine-tune your strategy for maximum results.

9. Sometimes It’s All About Who You Know

Popstars, athletes, and actors tend to have great influence on channels like Twitter and Facebook. Thus while it might be difficult to get a star like Taylor Swift to endorse your product page, doing so could yield a big profit for your business. And that’s why attempting to build a relationship with a celebrity could be a good idea.

10. People Like To Play Around

Although the world of business is definitely serious business, your customers will typically be interested in having fun while surfing your web pages or considering which product to purchase. Since this is the case, it could be advantageous for you to feature fun games and prizes so that people enjoy themselves on your site. One attractive strategy you could implement would be to award the individual who retweets a link to your product page every day for a month with a free t-shirt advertising your company.

Although the world of social media may seem inscrutable, learning about effective secrets that can help you in your internet marketing strategies is a great way to ensure that your business continues to grow and expand. Good luck!