A business plan is needed anytime you are planning on starting a business, no matter whether it is offline or on the Internet. No modern business plan is complete without some sort of social media marketing strategy that makes use of the newest techniques and puts a new spin on old ones.

If you wish to have a big following in social media marketing, don’t try to just sell products. Post stories or links from external providers relevant to your industry or niche. Ask your followers questions, hold giveaways and post interactive content. You need to have high engagement with your followers. Product engagement is preferable to simple product placement. People should be able to identify with your brand and consider it as a part of their daily lives.

Think about creating a guest blog on your site where you let a popular niche blogger come in and write. Consider doing something similar on another site. This helps to generate traffic, and it creates a sense of belonging for your visitors. You should ensure that your guest-blog agreement specifies that there will be a link that links to your site. You should return this courtesy when someone blogs for your site, of course. It’s a win-win situation, because followers will likely check out both websites.

Engage online users by including buttons that link to your Facebook, Twitter and other profiles. You can also provide the option to subscribe to your RSS feed. Make sure this appears on your website, blog, emails and signature when you leave comments. You also want to include links to other social networking profiles to help encourage people to locate you on different sites.

Utilize the wonderful world of social marketing to your full advantage by following the above tips. Running a social media marketing campaign takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but it is well worth it in the long run.