The business results you have today are based on what you did in the past. Consequently, what you do today to market your business, will impact your business tomorrow. So the question is... 

Are your marketing efforts today setting you up for future success?

The best way to build a viable business for the future is to start implementing referral based marketing strategies today.  A lead generated from a happy customer is ‘hot', and the easiest of all leads to qualify and close.

How does social media marketing help to build a referral based business?

It takes time to build a network on the internet, fans on Facebook, members on LinkedIn, followers on Twitter.  Your market reach is their market reach.

Let's say you had 100 connections spread between the three major social media sites, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and each one of your connections had 100 connections (which is conservative) you now have a reach of 10,000 people.  Think about traditional marketing methods and how much time and money it would take to reach 10,000 people via referral methods.

To market today for tomorrow's success, start building a quality network of fans, members and followers that represent your target audience, engage and add value on a regular basis. Who knows how many connections you'll have in your network within 12 months.

Six obvious (that often get forgotten) tips to a happy customer:

1. Provide outstanding service from the very beginning, from the first point of contact with your company.

2. Make it clear what you are providing and what they can expect from your product or service.

3. Make sure you deliver on what you say you will.

4. Under promise and over deliver.

5. Follow up and make sure they are happy. Do they have any post purchase issues or problems.

6. Maintain regular contact with your current customers and make sure you're adding value every time you connect with them.

How to use Social Media Marketing to empower your happy customers to spread the word:

Facebook and LinkedIn:

1. Create a forum on these sites for your customers to interact with each other.

2. Encourage fans and members to post questions for you to answer.

3. Provide added value, extra tips and advice on discussion boards.

4. Provide links to these groups from your website, blog and other content so prospects can interact with current customers.

Twitter:

5. Personally interact with your customers and build rapport.

6. Post special offers and discounts.

7. Post links to informative and interesting articles or content that would be valuable to your customers.

If you would like FREE advice on how to market your business in web2.0 world subscribe to my blog Inbound Marketing Solutions for Small Business.

How do you use social media to interact with your customers/prospects? What are the results?