The most effective social media marketing strategy is not always the one that is the most obvious.
For example, research shows that social marketing strategies on Facebook that simply use ads aren't very effective at actually getting the desired message across and properly increasing sales.
Strategies that do work on Facebook are more interactive, forcing the users of the social media site to think about what's going on and respond in some way.
For example, those who create a Facebook application often get good results, since Facebook users who like the application and use it regularly will be disseminating your marketing for you far and wide without any additional cost needed.
Another effective social marketing tool is creating a survey.
This gets users to actually participate in some way, so they notice anything you're trying to promote to them, instead of just glossing over it as annoying and in the background, as is often the case with ads.
Having a technique on Facebook where you friend recent customers.
This creates a long-lasting relationship that will keep customers connected into what you're doing.
If they accept the friend request, you can post information and marketing at a later date that they will continue to get, instead of a one time deal like in regular advertising.
This technique also allows you to target specifically with the marketing that will be most effective to particular demographics of customers.
A social media marketing strategy that is effective on twitter, is responding to those who give you negative comments.
This works because anyone who goes to the twitter page will take note of such a reach out.
It's also an effective way to address common concerns that many people are likely to have with the product, which will make them more likely to buy into it by preemptively dismissing their concerns.
taking pains to promote in-person events is also an effective strategy on Twitter since the application tends to be used for quick infuses of information, and an in-person event is one that people who would be interested in it would monitor on a social media outlet like Twitter.
Other marketing strategies that work well on social media sites in general is a generic kind of monitoring for brand problems or other kinds of dissatisfaction.
Social media can be a great way to get information about the effectiveness of marketing, even in terms of numbers.