5 Social Media Marketing Firms To Start With

Ignoring social media marketing outlets is done at your own peril. Without a doubt, if you can get people talking and posting about your company or products in a social media environment such as Twitter or Facebook, you can reap the rewards of the almost-impossible-to-measure yardstick: word of mouth. Were you to ask what ‘social media marketing’ could do for you, I’d hazard to guess your business either (a) doesn’t have a social media presence in the first place, or (b) has one but it’s either lackluster or you’re not sure what the heck to do with it in the first place. Sure, you might have a Facebook account for your biz - but what’s the big deal, right (http://www.smallbiztechnology.com/archive/2011/08/the-case-for-social-media-marketing.html/)

The big deal is that, with the tools and resources that are out there these days, a little snooping around can uncover some pretty nice ways to ‘dress up’ your social media presence, ranging from inexpensive to luxury-ridden. I’ve listed a few here:

• Promojam lets you build your own promotions from ready-made templates, upload them, and then track their effectiveness. Somewhat expensive at a minimum of 249.99 a month, there is a 15-day free trial so you can try before you commit.
• Grosocial is similar to Promojam, in that you build, upload, and track your own promotions for your social media presence. There’s also an interesting “social media bootcamp” they offer that might be interesting to social media newbies. They’re a bit cheaper than Promojam, coming in at $59/month for their white label subscription and have a 30-day free trial.
• Wildfire is a Google app that builds, executes, and monitors your page-driven promotions. What’s interesting is that a lot of big business uses Wildfire (The Gap, Dairy Queen, Virgin Atlantic, and several pro sports teams, to name a few). Pricing seems pretty standard and there is a ‘test drive’ option as well.
• Awareness and their “social marketing hub” helps coordinate content publishing, management, and measurement across multiple platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Flickr, YouTube, and WordPress. Starting at $500 a month, they’re up there with Promojam price-wise, but they also have some big customers as well.
• HootSuite manages social media content across a variety of media platforms, just as many of their brethren do, but HootSuite has a spectrum of about 44 (that I counted) social media platforms they interact with. A free version of their plan and a $9.99/month plan with a 30-day trial give pocketbooks a break, too.

There are tons of these types of sites out there…the goal of any business not utilizing them, or not properly coordinating their presence through them, means you’re not only wasting valuable time but also not bringing in customers due to engaging interactivity. Engagement and ease of use is where it’s all at.