Social Media Marketing is now essential for brand reputation and for SEO. But, more than that, it’s an effective way of connecting with existing and prospective customers, and providing customer service.

It’s not enough to set up a Twitter account and post daily about your products or services – you need to maintain an online presence and engage with your followers – just one example of how businesses aren’t using social media to its full potential.

We offer a 2-day Social Media course which is jam packed with advice, guidance, strategic tips, what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos. The course is continually updated with the latest developments in the industry, and you leave ready to begin (or revamp) your business’s social media campaign.

For those who are thinking of coming on the course, or those who can’t make it to Brighton (although we’re happy to train you on site!), here’s our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. We hope it helps!

Our #1 Ultimate Most Important Top Tip

The number one thing to be aware of is that social media marketing is not about you - it's about them ('them' being your followers, those who like your pages, your connections and your circles). Never forget to ask yourself what you want to see on social media from a business – and that constant self-promotion is the quickest way to put people off. I see examples of this happening every day.

With that in mind, I’ll take you through how to apply this principle to the various social networks.

Social Media Marketing is now essential for brand reputation and for SEO. But, more than that, it’s an effective way of connecting with existing and prospective customers, and providing customer service.

It’s not enough to set up a Twitter account and post daily about your products or services – you need to maintain an online presence and engage with your followers – just one example of how businesses aren’t using social media to its full potential.

We offer a 2-day Social Media course which is jam packed with advice, guidance, strategic tips, what-to-dos and what-not-to-dos. The course is continually updated with the latest developments in the industry, and you leave ready to begin (or revamp) your business’s social media campaign.

For those who are thinking of coming on the course, or those who can’t make it to Brighton (although we’re happy to train you on site!), here’s our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing. We hope it helps!

Our #1 Ultimate Most Important Top Tip

The number one thing to be aware of is that social media marketing is not about you - it's about them ('them' being your followers, those who like your pages, your connections and your circles). Never forget to ask yourself what you want to see on social media from a business – and that constant self-promotion is the quickest way to put people off. I see examples of this happening every day.

With that in mind, I’ll take you through how to apply this principle to the various social networks.

Choosing the best Social Bookmarking sites

It can be tricky deciding how to choose your Social Bookmarking websites, and hard to know which are the best ones. You may wonder whether your subject matter is appropriate, what sort of audience they attract, or whether your bookmark will leave a dofollow link.

But confusion aside, social bookmarking sites are a key part of the Social Media and SEO mix - once you've decided which ones to use, bookmarking is an incredible way of increasing exposure and traffic. It's also important to add some bookmarking widgets to your blog, to encourage others to recommend it - see our hands-on Training for Social Media, Training for SEO, and Training for Blogging courses to learn more about this.

Read on for our list of the best Social Bookmarking sites and tips for how to use them.

Choosing the best Social Bookmarking sites

It can be tricky deciding how to choose your Social Bookmarking websites, and hard to know which are the best ones. You may wonder whether your subject matter is appropriate, what sort of audience they attract, or whether your bookmark will leave a dofollow link.

But confusion aside, social bookmarking sites are a key part of the Social Media and SEO mix - once you've decided which ones to use, bookmarking is an incredible way of increasing exposure and traffic. It's also important to add some bookmarking widgets to your blog, to encourage others to recommend it - see our hands-on Training for Social Media, Training for SEO, and Training for Blogging courses to learn more about this.

Read on for our list of the best Social Bookmarking sites and tips for how to use them.

So you have your Twitter account, you can see who you are following, you can see who follows you and you can see which of those you are following are following you.

Great, but now you want to know:

• Who is not following you back?
• Who has recently stopped following you?
• What are your contacts tweeting about?
• Who is a useless twit?

Those interested in building up their online presence using social media may be interested in our one day Social Media course. There are loads of Twitter applications out there that can answer these questions for you, here are just a few of my favourites:

1. TwitterCounter: THE number 1 stats site for your Twitter account.
2. My Tweeple: My Tweeple lists your follower and those you follow with their bio snippet attached, this is really useful if you want to contact them outside of twitter as their website or LinkedIn account is usually listed.
3. FriendOrFollow: Who are you following that’s not following you back? Who’s following you that you’re not following back? A very concise and visual tool.
4. ChirpStats: To find out when someone has unfollowed you, simply follow @chirpstats on Twitter and then it will message you every time you are unfollowed.
5. Refollow - Allows you to filter out unimportant follows and group together different types of useful people you follow. It's a great way to manage your followers and friends.