| Step 4 - Getting in the Social Mix We covered quite a bit of background material on the development and current state of Web 2.0. You learned about many different social sites, picked up on some esoteric terms, and maybe experienced a bit of information overload.
In this step, we'll do some review but our main objective is to give you a structured course of action for getting your business actually into the social mix. More...  7 Guidelines of Social Media Marketing
1. Research - explore communities and find the right fit 2. Patience - get involved with just one social site at a time 3. Participation - contribute, add value to the community, and gain trust from others 4. Reputation - build up your profile, make friends, be transparent, and strengthen your reputation over time 5. Strategy - think about how you can most effectively promote your content within each specific community 6. Content Sharing - decide on the content that you'd like to share and distribute it effectively but carefully 7. Measurement - gather & process qualitative and quantitative data to fine-tune your campaign  | Now, it's time for you to systematically make your way through each of the following to-do items to jumpstart your campaign. We'll begin with social bookmarking & news sites and then give you a plan for participating in the blogosphere. More... |  Qualitative Measurement
Before a close look at the numbers, graphs, and trends, don't neglect the importance of having a macro-, qualitative understanding of your social marketing campaign performance. Ask yourself the following questions, when evaluating each specific social site, and later combine it with and your analytics data: More...  Quantitative Measurement
Now, you need to confirm whether the qualitative info you have is actually backed up by real quantitative data. Use your Web analytics package for your site and blog analytics software (check out Feedburner, Radian6, and Woopra) to accomplish the following: - Track the new inlinks you have from your social marketing campaign with Endo SEO inlink tools
- Observe the referral traffic numbers now in comparison to the time before you began this phase of your inlink building campaign
- How many absolute unique visitors have you had in the last month (compared to previous time frames)?
- How much has your conversion rate increased?
- By what factor have your sales increased?
It's imperative to process all of your quantitative and qualitative data and then decide on how you need to fine-tune your social media marketing campaign. Whatever you need to tweak, remember that your entire campaign is a long term journey that will reward you greatly over time if you follow our 7 guidelines, tips, & strategies. More... 
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