You'd have to be living in a hole to not know about social media. Nearly every home business expert, including me, will tell you that social media is a necessary tool for home business success if done correctly. Setting up a profile, posting info and expecting tons of friends and success, is like posting a website and expecting tons of traffic and profits. It just doesn't work like that. Social media marketing requires an understanding of how it works and a plan to make it work for you.

Otherwise you're going to waste time and possibly annoy the very people you're trying to attract. Here are some tips for effective social media marketing:

1) Define your market. In any marketing strategy, you have to know who you're trying to reach and "everyone" isn't an acceptable answer. Your market is defined by who is the most likely buyer or who can benefit the most from what you offer. How old are they? What is their gender? What is their socioeconomic status? What are their values? What are their hobbies?

2) Research which social networks your market uses. This is key. If a significant segment of your market isn't on Twitter, you don't need to tweet. Successful marketing is about putting your message in front of your market, not by trying to be everywhere at once. If your home business caters to other businesses or entrepreneurs, then you should be on LinkedIn. If you sell homemade craft jewelry, then Pinterest is a good place to connect with your market. Don't limit your efforts to the most well-known social networks.

There are many industry and interest-specific networks that might be better for your business.

3) Figure out what information your market wants. You can't perform effective social media marketing without a plan to deliver what your market wants. Using social media for marketing means providing information your market is looking for. It's why they follow you. Part of your social media marketing strategy needs to include delivering the information your market is looking to know about. You can do this by posting tips, links to articles on your website or news related to your industry.

4) Determine how you can best interact with your market. While delivering information is a part of social media marketing, it's not the only thing. If all you do is talk about you, you'll annoy people. The key word in social media is social. If you were in a room full of people, you wouldn't do all the talking. Instead you'd engage in two-way conversation. You'd listen and respond. You might even relay a story from one person to another person. You want to do the same in social media marketing. A great benefit of social media marketing is that it's a tool to ask for feedback or respond to questions from your market. Further, when it comes to making choices about who to buy from, consumers tend to choose businesses they feel a personal connection to, which can be developed through social media.

5) Have a plan and tools. The problem with social media is that it's a huge time suck. More time on social media doesn't necessarily equate to more money in your home business. Automation tools can help. For example, if you blog, you can have your RSS feed automatically post to social media networks. You can make engagement easier by using a tool that pulls all your social media into one place like Tweetdeck or HootSuite.

There is no doubt that social media can help your reach your market and expand your business. But you can't use social media willy nilly. You need to know your market and make a plan to maximize your time and your results.