For your business to be successful, and to make sure you have a steady stream of buyers for your drop ship products, you need to use the most effective marketing tools to get in front of your customers. As more and more of them are using social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter, these sites have become great places to market your business, as long as you know what your doing.

Social Media Marketing Is NOT the Same as Traditional Marketing

Marketing with social networking is very different to traditional marketing, and you don't want to find that out the hard way. Simply posting links to the dropship products on your website is no good, unless you have already built up a following of fans, and given then a reason to want to check out your dropship business. Social Media is all about sharing, and the businesses that get the most success from marketing on Facebook, Twitter and all the other sites, give as much as they take. Here are some of the basics for using the main social networking sites, and how to get the most benefit for your dropship enterprise.

Facebook as a Marketing Tool

Facebook now has over 500 million users, and all of them could be potential customers for your dropship products. Set up your own page for your dropshipping business, but don't just use it to post about the items you have for sale. Share information about your market, that your customers might find useful. If you write product reviews, or have how to videos that you have created, a Facebook page is a great place to gather it all together, and will complement, as well as link to your dropship website.

People log on to Facebook to have fun, so you need to make sure the page for your dropshipping business has a personality, and doesn't take itself too seriously. Try adding competitions, or exclusive products and discounts, just for your Facebook customers. You have to earn the right to keep pitching your drop ship products to them, by giving them things they'll like, and that will keep them coming back for more.

There are a also a range of applications you can add to your Facebook page, to help convert your fans into customers for your dropshipping business. Adding any of the ecommerce apps will make it easier for people to buy your dropship products, after you've built up enough trust to get them to want to spend their money.

Of course, all this is free marketing, and businesses are devoting more time to it because of that, and the fact that it works. But you might also want to consider Facebook's paid advertising options. If the target market for your drop ship products are exactly the type of people who are using this site, Facebook lets you target ads with the demographic information of their users, so you can make sure they're seen by the people most likely to buy.

Twitter, Another Powerful Marketing Tool

Twitter is the micro-blogging platform that has had phenomenal success in the last couple of years. It's ability to provide millions of users with short snippets of useful information, that link to websites which can provide more detail, has made it a popular tool with all sorts of businesses looking to market themselves. The same principle applies here share as much as you sell.

Many "tweeters" are put off by the blatant pitches and links to sales pages. But if you add value, you'll soon build up a strong following, who'll be happy to go and see what your dropshipping business is selling. Give them links to useful information about your market; news stories, product reviews, even how to videos that you might have uploaded to YouTube.

Make it entertaining as well, it doesn't all have to be about your dropship business. And of course, providing exclusive discounts to your loyal followers is a great way to generate business.

Don't Forget the Others

Facebook and Twitter are a couple of the most popular sites, but if you're not already adding marketing videos for your dropship products to YouTube, you should be.

How about starting a blog? A professional one, that you host yourself as part of your dropshipping website, is ideal. But if you're not at that stage yet, any of the free platforms like Blogger, Wordpress and Tumblr, as well as sites like Squidoo and Hubpages, where you can post your reviews and other market-related information, are all great exposure for your business. They give you the potential to appeal to a wider audience of customers, and send them all back to your dropshipping website. Social networking is going to continue to grow, so you should be taking advantage of the marketing potential for your dropship products. In most cases, it's free and easy to start using, and with more of your potential customers on these sites, it's where you need to be.

Part 6: Using Social Media to Sell Dropship Products
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