8 ways to make social marketing work for you.

1. Know your audience. Do they use social media? If so, which sites?

2. Once you have decided what type of social media you'll use, pay attention to what's being said out there – about your industry, your product or service, and about you.

3. Don't let social media eat up all of your time. Limit the number of hours you spend updating your sites each week.

4. Stick with it! Update your sites regularly. New content on your blog, for example, not only creates interest, it moves you up higher in search engine results.

5. Understand that online activities can come with pitfalls. Most notably unfavorable comments – not all of them even fair or honest.

6. Encourage satisfied propects to post. Be careful not to provide them with any kind of payment or incentive to do so, however, since this will likely get you kicked off of the site.

7. Clarify innacurate comments. If you read a comment you know to be untrue, add your clarification to the postings. But never get into an online spat – this will make you look bad.

8. Keep experimenting. With the Web itself continually evolving, so too are the marketing opportunities it presents.