What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is changing the face of advertising for small businesses and entrepreneurs. But what does it mean? Basically, social media means socializing via the internet.
How does it work? In the past, most small business owners would buy an ad in the yellow pages, creating a phone book listing. This is how people could find that particular business location and phone number. They would also acquire customers by placing ads in newspapers or create more attraction to their business by buying a radio spot. Today, however, the yellow pages are almost antiquated, and there aren’t nearly as many people reading newspapers. Studies have shown that most people, today, search the internet before picking up a phone book. Small business owners and entrepreneurs have realized that they have to modify their advertising practices in order to gather new prospects or their businesses will not succeed.
Social media marketing is a powerful advertising tool which allows businesses to promote themselves through the social media channels on the internet. This creates a potent strategy that draws links and vast volumes of traffic to individual websites. NPR radio reported that 50 billion dollars was expected to be spent in the holiday season of 2010 through the purchase of goods over the internet.
With so many millions of websites on the internet today, potential customers often have a difficult time discerning which site to choose in order to purchase products. Social Media Marketing is a form of marketing which is low in cost, yet can attract enormous volumes of visitors, many of whom will visit websites they come to trust, time and time again. It gives people guidance as to which companies will meet their needs not only with great products, but customer service as well. Feedback through star ratings, blogs and other media sources allows the consumer to be interactive with online businesses, which in turn gives them a sense of participation, security and over time, community. New prospects to the site review these ratings and have the opportunity to determine for themselves if the website meets their standards. Companies that emphasize selling quality products and have great customer service draw a vast number of repeat customers. For a business to succeed, it is essential that they have these loyal supporters as they in turn tell others. As the word spreads, the site perpetuates itself.
Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Google Plus have reported traffic of many millions of individuals a day. Consequently, infinite streams of visitors can potentially flow to websites that sell products or services on a daily basis. However, it is important to note that although startup costs are virtually nothing for involvement in this form of marketing, considerable time must be spent on a weekly basis to continue to propagate interest and keeps the traffic flowing. Therefore, instant results are not to be expected. Over time, with considerable hours spent on putting into practice the necessary steps, social media marketing can be a tool that reaps lucrative rewards for those businesses that use it.
