If you want to really harness the power of social media to create new business, it’s not enough to simply have a couple of social media profiles. You need to be proactive, passionate and even a little crafty.

Since they’re the two biggest networks, let’s focus on some advanced marketing tips for promoting your small business on Facebook and Twitter.

Analyze your competition on Facebook

Ideally, you’ll be using a Social Media Dashboard to do this across all forms of social media. But no matter what methods or tools you use, it might be a good idea to think about the following when structuring an analysis of your competition:

• What are your competitors doing?
• What are their calls to action?
• Where do their links go?
• Do they have Social Media landing pages on their website?
• How often do they post?
• Do they use multi-media?
• Do they have discussion forums?
• How vocal are their followers?

Armed with this arsenal of information, you’ll be much better equipped to develop or tweak your own Facebook presence.

But be careful, just because your competition is doing something well does not mean you need to copy them. In fact, both the things they do well and the things they do poorly are opportunities for you to improve your own offering.

How to Utilize Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising is another great way to reach an active, engaged and targeted audience. The Facebook Advertising Platform allows you to create Pay-Per-Click advertisements that will be viewed by Facebook users as they spend time on the network.

The Facebook ads that get viewed by users are completely customizable to the ‘profile and interests’ information provided by Facebook users. This means that if your target market is single women aged 18-25 loving in Chicago, for example, it’s really easy to customize your campaign to appeal to that exact market.

Facebook ads attract a lot of attention and a lot of clicks. The great news is that the user engagement, number of clicks, etc. is also completely trackable from within the Facebook Ads interface.

Advanced Marketing on Twitter

Twitter is a fantastic tool for keeping in touch with your existing customer base as well as creating business contacts and developing new leads.

Not only that, it all fits neatly into a quaint little 140 character space.

But unfortunately, a simple company account won’t get you very far these days. There are a few more advanced strategies that you can easily employ to take your Twitter account from mediocre to cutting edge.

Do your #Hashtag Research

#Hashtags are gold on Twitter. They’re a simple little device that allows users to follow certain keywords and phrases, allowing them to better navigate the “Twitersphere”.

Do some research into #Hashtags that relate to your business and complimentary services and industries so that whenever someone uses them, you’ll be informed. This knowledge will also give you the ability to accurately engage your audience based on their interests.

Always Respond to @Replies

@Replies are sent to you on Twitter when another user is actively engaging you in public conversation. Acknowledging this is crucial to your online image.

This other user has taken the time and put in the effort to contact your business through a public online channel. Promote and encourage this. If you don’t, it’s like saying to the world that you don’t have the time or the inclination to converse with your followers.

Twitter is best when it’s about conversation so be sure and reply to every conversation that’s directed at you.

What do you say?

Have you done any advanced Facebook or Twitter Marketing? Let us know by leaving a comment below and you could be featured on Fan Friday.