Friday, September 26, 2014

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is part of internet marketing for promoting products/services, etc. Done with an effective plan, social media marketing can be an effective tool bring target traffic to your business website. Social media networking websites allow interaction among individuals with one another, thus building a strong relationship.

Importance of social media marketing
In the current competitive business scenario, it is important for businesses, more particularly small businesses, to have social media marketing strategy. It is for this reason that businesses are giving increasing importance to it. They are promoting their products or services, and are thus building good relationship with their customers and prospects. Following are points that may help you understand the importance of social media marketing for your business.
  • Enables to reach a big number of audiences: Using social media as a marketing tool will help you in reaching audience in large numbers. The more people you are able to reach, the more is the awareness of your business among users.
  • Helps SEO: To boost your SEO rankings, social media marketing is an effective way. Make sure, however, that website content is fresh and active. By this your business will be able to get better search engine result ranks.
  • It is cost effective : One of the most important reasons for opting social media marketing is that it is an inexpensive as it can be done on Twitter, Facebook, Google, etc. at no cost. You might need to pay minimal fee but on a whole, social media marketing is cost effective.
  • Builds brand awareness : One of the most important reasons for using social media as a marketing tool is building brand awareness. If done correctly, you are able to succeed in building your brand's name.
Types of social media marketing
Following are different types of social media marketing:
  • Social networks: These are the websites that allow you in connecting to people. You may get connected to a group of setups to interact with other users, etc. Popular ones are Facebook and Linkedin.
  • Bookmarking sites: These kind of services (websites) help you in saving, organizing and managing links to various websites. Most websites allow you to tag your links that can make them easier to share and search.
  • Social news: These are the services that allow people to post various items or links that are new, to outside articles. Then, these websites allow users to vote for the items. Voting is the most important aspect as the items that gets more votes are displayed mostly.
  • Media sharing: These services allow you in uploading and sharing various media like pictures and videos. Many of these services have extra social features like profiles, comments, etc.
Businesses, particularly small businesses should consider the potential of this inexpensive strategy, and leverage it for beneficial effects.