With millions of clients and prospective clients spending hours on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites, a wise professional services firm will create a social media strategy that promotes the brand and allows direct engagement with clients. The following tips can help you create a social media strategy that keeps you tuned to your client's wants.

A company's reputation is often the make-or-break factor that determines whether the firm will stay in business. In today's online environment, the size of the community a business serves has grown to include almost the entire world. Building and maintaining your firm's online reputation will help your clients to feel good about their decision to work with you. Their good choice is reaffirmed when they see increasing numbers of new clients who find you to be just as effective.

Once hailed as a simple application for posting and sharing photos and not much more, Instagram has evolved into an effective avenue to reach millions of potential clients with visual content. No longer constrained to images, videos can also be posted to appeal to audiences. Here are eight ways you can apply marketing through Instagram to increase your online reach and engage your community in a visually appealing way.

A successful social media campaign reaches as deeply as possible into the potential pool of leads and clients who may be interested in your products and services. There is another critical group. However, that should also be considered when crafting your social media activities: the thought leaders, influencers, and other prominent players who could be instrumental collaborators in getting the word out about your company and its offerings.

Getting the best results out of social media marketing requires some concentrated effort and attention to effective practices. Here are three ways you can improve your social media presence and increase your number of followers.

With an audience nearing 300 million active users, the Twitter microblogging platform lets you send quick, concise messages to your marketing campaigns, maintain better engagement with your clients, and find new leads that can be converted to clients. These simple facts cannot be ignored. If your Twitter strategy is bland, it is time to spice it up with these 10 ingredients.

Using social media marketing to its best advantage can benefit your business. It can be a good use of time and a missed opportunity if handled correctly or inconsistently. Errors can make it look like you and your company "just don’t get it." Avoid these nine common social media mistakes, and you'll be on your way to success.