What if social media wasn't only good for catching up with high school friends?

Social media marketing is the means of gaining website traffic or attention through social media's such as Facebook and Twitter.


I've been reading a lot about this recently and the concept is actually not only simple, but quite brilliant as well.  After all, word of mouth is the basic principle of gaining traffic in any business, what better way is there to gain word of mouth than posting your product or ideas in an arena viewed by millions of people daily.  


Sounds simple enough, right?  What I'm finding is that it isn't quite as simple as it sounds.  It isn't just a matter "friending" or "following" as many people as possible and  then posting a link, or stating an idea and it catching on.  You have to target a specific audience, an audience that is going to be interested in what you are putting out there.  After all, if I'm on Facebook to connect with fellow music lovers, I'm not going to be interested in "How to train my dog in seven days".


What I've gathered so far is that you need to know your product, service etc., then you need to determine who would benefit the most from it and spread the word.


My biggest dilemma so far is separating the line between my personal and business social media  endeavors.  Though there is nothing wrong with sharing a good prospect with friends and family, there is also a very fine line between being useful/informative and aggressive/intrusive.  Make sure you find that line, and don't cross it.