smmwatch | 
How many of you marketing executives or managers out there have been stuggling to put in place a plan to launch a social media marketing campaign for your firm?I bet many!
You may have created a list of activities such as launching your own forums or Wiki, if your business permits, participating in events or meet ups, start microblogging, distributing contents/eBook(s) on content sharing sites, planning podcasting or webinar(s) about product or event launch, creating viral videos and distributing on video sharing sites etc, but the million dollar question still remains is how to get started or which activity should be done first or in combination of other activities.
Since lots of information is available out there, there is bound to be information overload; there are many people who know what social media marketing can do yet they do not know how to benefit from it. Let’s start with few steps at a time to get a head up.
Start with creating profile on top social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, ibebo etc and keep active initially until you see your fans or member stats increasing. Invite as many people you know to your profile and continue growing your network.
If your business is such that it can have a community built around it, plan to have a dedicated forum on where you can create your own dedicated social networking site such as Ning.
Next is creating accounts on micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter, Plurk, Pownce etc and toy with the idea of creating as many followers in your niche area as possible. On Twitter search for members in your area using tweet search or use the service of Grader.com to search for members on Twitters. I personally liked Grader search.
Start with creating really good content on interesting topic that you think will add value when read and ability for people to to promote it. You can submit to websites such as Digg, Reddit, De.licio.us etc where people can vote your articles up the ladder and resulting traffic to your website.
Create a podcast about your products or services and popularize it. This way more people know about your product(s) and service(s). Again the podcast doesn’t have to be a million dollar budgeted program; simply a informative content will do.
Another creative way of getting your website among the social traffic will be creating a creative video and publish on video sharing portals such as YouTube and on 50 or so more such video sharing websites for creating a viral video marketing campaign.
List of activities for your social media marketing campaign can be long;however these could serve as starting point.