Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have seized the imagination of marketers across the world. But does it really help in marketing products and services and getting more business. What are these media sites anyways? Let's take a look..
Social media marketing uses social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for advertising, sales, public relations and customer service. SMM general happens off your website, and the best example of it is on Social News and Bookmark sites.
Social media web sites acquire huge subscriptions as individuals across the planet sign in to connect with each other to satisfy the basic human urge for social company. It is on boards like these where people are investing considerable amount of their overall surfing time on the world wide web. There are numerous sorts of communities within social media sites such as Health, Entertainment, Sports, Technology and many more where people connect with likeminded people and share and discuss their ideas. As such these sites have a great "stickiness" factor, a very important aspect of online marketing.
By building the right online marketing architecture, companies can optimise their social media strategies to their advantage. For example a sports shoe manufacturer could make a social profile on a social media online community which has a large number of members who appreciate sports. As such, the shoe company can promote its products on such forums and give the users updates about their latest products and offers. Similarly, retail businesses can intelligently use social media optimization to benefit their businesses.
So how can Social Media Optimization reward your business..
· Brand Building: A productive Social Media Optimization campaign leads to a lot more viral buzz about your brand online. When your marketing message works with your users, they will spread your communication more successfully than conventional techniques. Your business benefits from brand building; which works best when users participate themselves as your communication spreads virally.
· Fast turnaround: Climbing up to the top page of major social video, news and bookmark sites will transmit your business significant amounts visitors and that too almost instantly.
· Low price benefits: A wide-ranging SMO strategy does not cost much and may provide a partial replacement to traditional advertising and marketing at a fraction of the costs.
· Search engine rankings: Search Engines seem to be highly impressed with Social Media sites; as such SMO campaigns bring you significant amounts of backlinks that benefit your rating in search engines.
· Target Marketing: SMO has the ability to target your audience by:
o Locational targeting
o Gender specific targeting
o Targeting by age
o Targeting by marital status
o Targeting by interests
· Quality recommendations: A large portion of the online buying community bases their buying decisions upon testimonials from fellow community users. You can now reach these people with Social Media Optimization and influence their opinion.
Since this form of advertising is a fresh concept and conventional marketing companies are still evolving their online strategy, there are many professional Internet Marketing companies which provide social media optimization services to businesses. These Social Media Optimization firms have SMO professionals who understand the internet marketing requirements of businesses and device an optimal SMO service plan custom made to the specific business requirement.
