Why use Social Media as a marketing tool?
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels – social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis etc (Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn and Facebook etc). It is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention, drive customer growth and increase web traffic all for a very low cost. The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to spread the word about your business, to put a marketable brand in front of the target audience and to increase sales.
Social media marketing fits into the category of ‘inbound marketing’, where companies focus on getting ‘found by customers’. Traditional marketing methods fall into the outbound marketing category. This is where companies focus on finding customers by ‘going after them’. Outbound marketing techniques are getting less and less effective, as the average human is inundated with over 2000 marketing interruptions in a typical day, and therefore working out more ways to block them.
About 83% of the entire online population between the ages of 13 and 54 now use social media. As this number proves, more and more people are using social media networks. Businesses must take advantage of this and develop a better understanding of this form of marketing, in order to succeed now and in the future.
Social media can take many different forms, including:
Communication:
Blogs (WordPress)
Microblogging (Twitter)
Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn)
Collaboration:
Wikis (Wikipedia)
Social bookmarking (Delicious)
Social news (Digg)
Multimedia:
Photo sharing (Flickr)
Video sharing (Youtube)
Audio and music sharing (Last.fm)
Why use social media marketing as a tool?
Create a ‘buzz’: An article, video, photo, or blog etc that attracts attention, will get passed on from one person to another, and increase brand awareness.
Customer engagement: A successful social media campaign will lead to more talk about your brand online. When your message engages with your uses, they will spread it more effectively than traditional methods.
Build customer relationships: Generate responses and comments from users who read your content/visit your page. By replying quickly and personally to their query/comment you will start to build a relationship.
Speed of feedback/results: Ranking highly or on the front page of a major social video, news or bookmarking site with quality content will dramatically increase your web traffic.
Content is limitless: there are not a set number of pages or hours, therefore allowing the audience to participate in social media by adding comments, instant messaging or even editing the stories themselves.
Brand building: By increasing the amount of people who are aware of your brand and what you do will ultimately lead to increased web traffic and leads.
Reach: Social media allows anyone to reach a large audience. Dependent on the quality of your content, you can start to build your online brand as mentioned above.
Low cost: Social media marketing can partially or fully replace traditional marketing methods by reaching a broader audience, for a fraction of the cost.
Search engines: Social media campaigns can bring you a large amount of back links that will enhance your ranking within the search engines.
Gain trust: Engaging with your audience will gain credibility from the crowd. Receiving recommendations and reviews of your products will increase trust and therefore sales.
Get noticed: As more people are ignoring traditional marketing methods, social media marketing has the potential to send visitors to your website.
How to get the best out of social media marketing?
When integrating social media into marketing plans, consider the following points:
Think carefully about the message that you will be displaying, the audience that will be receiving it, and the results that you expect.
Create a ‘buzz’ through a topical conversation about your brand. Respond to the feedback/comments, and learn from what they say – what are they interested in; why do they like certain products; and get to know your target market better.
Engage with your audience in an honest discussion, about how your brand can fulfil their needs. Embrace user generated content.
Provide up to date and real time information about your brand; how it is currently performing and give relevant case studies, with the option for your audience to comment and ask questions.
Become a fan of Manor Quarry on Facebook.
Follow Manor Quarry on Twitter.
Subscribe to Manor Quarry’s blog on WordPress.
View Manor Quarry’s profile on LinkedIn.
Bookmark Manor Quarry’s articles on Delicious.
Vote for Manor Quarry’s articles on Digg.
This entry was posted on October 16, 2009 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Internet Marketing. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: audio sharing, blogs, brand building, build relationships, customer engagement, Delicious, Digg, Facebook, inbound marketing, increase sales, increase web traffic, LinkedIn, Manor Quarry, marketing, microblogging, online communities, outbound marketing, photo sharing, Search Engines, social bookmarking, social media, social networks, social news, Twitter, video sharing, wikis
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