Social media is a great opportunity for your online business to reach your target audience and increase sales. People love social media and it’s the ideal place to promote your online business.

Social Media News Websites

The distinguishing feature of this type of social media site is that users submit links to Web content (articles, podcasts, videos, etc) that they find interesting. Think of these sites as social filtering or content curation type sites.

Examples of social news sites include Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.

When it comes to marketing your business on social media news websites, the key is to focus on providing valuable content and not overtly marketing yourself, your products or your services. If it makes sense, you can link back to your website or another related resource on your own website; but the primary focus should be on providing useful information.

Social Media Networking Websites

The distinguishing feature of a social networking site is the ability to upload a personal profile. These sites usually focus on the individual and connecting with other people.

Today, many people and businesses have joined the social networking with useful sites like LinkedIn (for professionals) and Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram (social networking for everyone).

Unlike social media news websites where the focus is on providing valuable content, the key with social media networking sites is to make connections and develop one-to-one relationships.

Social media networking sites are just another avenue for you to meet people and develop relationships that can eventually lead to joint-venture partnerships, business opportunities, and sales.

While most people think of doing free marketing on social media networking sites, another huge opportunity is to do paid advertising on social media.

The advantage of paid advertising on social media, over other means of advertising, is that you can really laser target your ideal audience by demographics, psychographics, etc.

Social Media Photo and Video Sharing

One of the most popular types of social media sites is the photo and video sharing services. Even though social networking sites like Facebook allow users to upload photos and videos, the standalone services are still immensely popular.

The most popular social media platform for uploading photos is Instagram and the most popular site for sharing videos is YouTube. Pinterest is also becoming a huge website for sharing pictures. If you’re in an especially visually based niche you’ll definitely want to use Pinterest to drive more website traffic.

Twitter is by far the most popular microblogging service. Twitter limits you to 280 characters per post and allows you to follow a set of users (“friends”) from one dashboard.

Twitter is unique in the sense that like LinkedIn, it’s a great way to connect with influencers in your market and also like Facebook, it’s a great place to keep followers up-to-date with your latest content and promotional offerings.

Another popular social media app that you could call a “micro” platform is SnapChat. Similar to Twitter, only the user-generated content is video based as opposed to text.

Social Media Review Websites

Local business review site Yelp! How social reviews are very effective for businesses promotion!

They key here is to encourage your customers to leave positive reviews and ratings for your business, products, and services on these websites. This can increase your rankings and also increase credibility and most importantly sales in your business.

If you have a local business you should encourage your customers to leave positive reviews on Yelp.

Keep in mind if you have a local “brick and mortar” business you should have a business listing on Google and encourage customers to leave positive reviews of your business on Google. This can increase your rankings and the number of new customers you attract.

Social Media for Everyone

There is at least one social media site for everyone and you’re probably best served by utilizing as many social media sites as possible; as the more places, you are the more chances you have of reaching your audience.

Here are tips on the best uses of social media for your business:

Facebook: A great site if you are marketing to a general consumer market
LinkedIn: Perfect for people who love one-to-one networking. Great for business to business.
Pinterest: A great match for businesses that are very visual
YouTube: If you’re willing to put the time and effort into a video marketing strategy, this is the place to be.
Yelp!: If you’re a main street retailer or restaurant, you live and die by the reviews on Yelp!.
Google Business: same as above, a must have for local businesses.
SnapChat: right now great if you’re targeting a younger audience/millennials.