Social media is the most inexpensive and accessible marketing tool in the history of modern communications. It can also be incredibly expensive, and best left to the pros. Here are three tiers of social media marketing, in order of increasing cost, to help you figure out what works best for you.

Organic Recruitment
DIY is undoubtedly the most popular approach. The only requirement is the time you’ll spend researching, testing and applying effective techniques. Here are some tips:

Twitter follow and retweet

Friend relevant Facebook pages

Participate in trending topics and #hash tags

@Reply intelligently to high-influence Twitter users

Take advantage of Twitter cards

Post promotional graphics and ask followers to share

Use automation tools

Use native reporting tools, learn how to improve reach

Use Facebook #hash tags and @reply

Engage your audience, ask questions, create dialogue

Discover and use new tools like Vine

Identify and create compelling content

Use the Facebook highlight feature

Continually test the platforms

Revisit and improve your profile description

Relentlessly research new opportunities

Paid Outreach
Both Facebook and Twitter offer advertising opportunities to promote businesses and grow followers. Here’s how advertising on Facebook and Twitter break down:

Facebook Sponsored Stories - helps people discover businesses
through their friends. Ads appear in news feeds and are shown only to friends of those who are already following you on Facebook.

Facebook Right Column Advertising - can be geo-targeted, interest targeted and demographically targeted.

Twitter Advertising - done through promotions which appear in a user’s feed. Ads can be targeted to audiences that follow a specific organization or individual.

Social Media Agencies
There a number of creative agencies solely dedicated to handling social media outreach. These agencies typically use high-end research tools to get the maximum impact out of their promotions. An agency will bring insight, field-tested experience and campaign creative to the table.

High end research tools

Ability to target and reach influencers

Tested techniques, continual improvements

Time sensitivity, responsiveness, ear-to-the-ground reporting

Campaign creative, integrated approaches

Fancy reports that make middle managers look good