Ten years ago, the phrase “Facebook fired” wasn’t in our vocabulary. Today a Google search for “fired for twitter post” brings up 158 million pages. Although you can delete photos and status updates, you can’t un-ring the bell, as too many “soon-to-be ex-employees” have found the hard way. Using Social Media is like living in a glass house – people on the outside can see what you’re doing on the inside. This doesn’t have to be a stressful situation. Instead, it represents a huge opportunity to connect with your target audience if you go about it the right way.

Post strategically

The key to living in the glass house of Social Media without worry is to approach posting socially as a strategic activity. The purpose is to connect with your audience and build and develop the “know,” “like,” and “trust,” factors that are crucial to converting prospects to clients and maintaining a long-term relationship. A strategic approach means developing a series of guiding principles that your posts and updates will be in alignment with.

Post in integrity

Nothing turns people off as fast as duplicity. People will forgive a lot of mistakes, but hypocrisy is a tough one for people to get past. There are lots of examples of people and businesses whose efforts have been hindered because the incongruity between their public face and their private face caught up with them. As Zig Ziglar once said “If you always tell the truth you don’t need a long memory.” If you only use Social Media to share pictures and post updates that are in alignment with your business and your personal “brand”, you don’t have to worry about living in a glass house.

For some, this really won’t be much of an issue at all. For others, it will be. The key here is that if you think that this could be an issue for you, don’t use Twitter, Facebook, etc., spontaneously. Instead, think about it before you post it. Sounds simple, but this simple approach, if followed, would have saved many public figures embarrassment and in some cases their livelihoods.

Mixing business and personal

Social Media marketing done right is not about being clinical or sterile in your updates. It is about achieving a balance between professional and personal that will attract your ideal audience and make them want to follow you and engage with you and then go on to do business with you. To achieve this balance steer clear of “TMI” or the sharing of too-much-information, usually personal in nature. Share the kind of things that will be interesting to your audience and supportive of your social marketing goals. Steer clear of anything that won’t help you develop know-like-trust with your target audience.

Social marketing can help you connect with your target audience like never before and contribute to the growth of your business. Don’t let the stress of living in a glass house keep you from moving into Social Media. To put the power of social to work for your business, check out 5 Ways to Grow Your Business Using Social Media.

Internet marketing campaigns revolve around 3 things – search engine optimization, social media and content marketing. These marketing efforts are referred to as pull strategies. These are the marketing efforts that are designed to “pull in” your target clients, instead of pushing them to make favorable buying decisions.

The oft-repeated adage in Internet marketing – content is king – remains as relevant as ever. After all these emerging developments and shifts, the content of your Webpage remains to be the lynchpin of Internet marketing. Search engines scour the pages of your Website to assess if such pages measure up to the search query. On the other hand, your target readers will follow the content of your blogs, whitepapers, articles, etc. in order to get a clear picture of the product or services that you are offering.

This means that you need to generate quality content to build your reputation online. You have to exert extra effort to show that you are a trusted and reliable source of information. Thus, if you want to hit the jackpot in your Internet marketing campaign, you have to work on your content.

There are 4 common pitfalls that you must avoid in your Internet marketing campaign. These are the following:

Inadequate Fresh Content

Fresh content is the lifeblood of content marketing. This may appear to be a perfect case of redundancy. How would you perceive a blog site where the latest post is already a few weeks old? Blogs that are generally stagnant are considered by readers as fairly useless and won’t waste their time reading through the content. You are losing out on the opportunity to rank well at Google since each of the posts in your blog can target various keywords and these can help improve your online presence.

Connecting With the Wrong Audience

Follow the basic rule in marketing – profile your potential clients. You must monitor who are reading your blog posts regularly. Carefully assess if you are missing out on some earning opportunities from other segments of the market. Determine what your priorities are. Do you want to build your reputation as an expert in a particular field or niche? Or do you want to share information with your target clients? You must also get a good grip of the online behavior of your target readers and find out what they are looking for when they browse the Web.

Coming Off As a Hard Sell

You will surely mess up your Internet marketing campaign if you treat your content marketing as your medium in selling your product or service. You have to remember that your primary objective is not to sell but to market your product or service. You are into content marketing to “help” your potential clients. Your readers will surely not appreciate it if you sound a bit too “promotional” when you provide content for your blog.

Producing Content Without Promotional Value

On the opposite end of the spectrum, you should find ways to promote your product or service without going overboard and appear to be a hard sell. Learn of the “stealth” techniques so that you can get the desired response from your readers. When you produce a great article or white paper, you can get positive response from your target audience. This puts you closer to your main objective of developing a potential business through higher CTRs. Make yourself visible on the Web. Get those posts on your social profiles, company newsletters and social bookmarking sites. Of course, don’t forget to put share buttons on your blogs so that your target audience can republish or link to them.