One of the top priorities when it comes to media plans for business is the inclusion of social media in their overall strategy. According to recent reports, companies are more than willing to get involved in these campaigns without thinking it through.

So here are a few questions that will help you create a sound social media strategy before you go about wasting precious ad dollars:

#1: What do we intend to accomplish?

This is vital to knowing why you want to spend efforts in social media whether you’re trying to generate awareness or new leads.

#2: Why pick the medium of social media?

Since there are other forms of advertising, it is important to ask yourself whether most of your target audience is present in this medium. It will also clue you in on which social media sites will help you achieve your campaign objectives.

#3: Which type of social media will help us achieve our goals?

With options such as real-time updates (like Twitter), social networking sites, blogs among others available at no cost, it is important to know which of these types will help you meet your objectives.

#4: Who will manage the social media campaign? Do we have the money and resources in place?

When you launch a social media campaign, there’s no doubt that it will take a lot of work. So you need to prepare yourself for how much money and resources you are willing to allocate in order to meet those objectives.

#5: How will we measure success or failure?

Views, comments, followers or subscribers are some of the ways by which you can understand whether you’ve met your objective and obtained value for money. You also have to think about what will have to be done if you haven’t met the objectives set.

While search engine optimization (SEO) has been around for more than a decade, many entrepreneurs are still not convinced that it is an important part of internet marketing. Does keyword research and SEO really make a difference in the world of organic search engine results? The answer is yes.

SEO companies have the tools and knowledge to help make websites more attractive to search engines and online browsers, pushing them to appear at or near the top of search results of major search engines such as Google and Bing. Why is this so important? Nearly 9 out of ten online browsers utilize search engines over word of mouth or social networking sites to find everything from local restaurants to plane tickets.

And why is ranking high in Google search results so important? Once again, Google Sites led the U.S. search market in October with 65.6 percent market share, according to the most recent data released by comScore. This means that out of the more than 18 billion searches that were conducted in October; more than 11.9 billion of those people used Google.

So whether you own a chain restaurant, a local salon, or a travel agency, chances are potential clients will be using the internet to search for your products or services, even if they don’t purchase them online.

For a business owner, a powerful SEO campaign can not only provide the business with more sales, but also save the company thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising. An SEO agency has the tools and experience to create an effective SEO campaign tailored to your business and services.