How do I best get started using social media marketing?

[Ronald Collin]

and should I focus on using it for myself first and getting comfortable with it before using it for clients, or should I learn for clients first?

[Jane]

You should first start using it yourself and learn from the process. Once you are comfortable with the medium and learn how to use it effectively and successfully, you can use your knowledge to help your clients succeed as well.

[Jane E]

Here we go, another "community manager" jumping on the social media bandwagon. My suggestion is: You are thinking of charging people for doing social media and you have to ask this sort of question on Yahoo answers, so it would be best to ignore the social media thing alltogether, as you obviously have no clue what you are doing.