How to use social networking outposts to drive your inbound marketing strategy

We’ve talked a lot about the importance of e-marketing strategies and how to make effective use of social media without it sucking up all of your time. The launch of Google+ and the recent IPO filing that reveals what Facebook is worried about has made some people once again consider their reliance on a particular social network. We’ve probably all jumped on band wagons at some point or another because it was the latest big thing, but are you and your business protected from shifts in the latest social networking trends?

We read an interesting article about creating social media outposts, which placed the emphasis on driving traffic back to your site. This is a strategy that we subscribe to, because frankly, any social network could go the way of mySpace or Bebo and your customers may move onto something else.

Your own site needs to be at the centre of your marketing strategy. By building your own content, which you own and no one can take away from you, you can then using social networking sites to create a conversation around that content.

It is worth periodically reviewing whether your social media outposts are still effective and whether your audience is still engaging you there. If you take your eye off the ball you may miss when all you customers start moving onto a new all singing and all dancing social network.

If the only web presence your business has is a Facebook page, then you should probably rethink your long term marketing strategy. Build a central web presence that you 100% own and control and build your social media outputs around it to protect your business in the long term.