If you have been around long enough, you will agree with me that the social media has forever changed the scope of marketing as we conventionally knew it. Before, marketing was a one-way street where a business was in control of the mechanisms, frequency, creative execution, messages and distribution of the same. There was no way of interacting or engaging with the customers to understand what worked, the misgivings they had or feedback to inform how you could better package your products and services. Enter the advent of the internet marketing, like social media marketing, has tremendously changed the ball game altogether.
Social media marketing refers to a process through which large and small businesses market their products and services through social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. It basically utilizes the aspect of the world wide web to increase interactions with customers at a more dynamic and personalized level as opposed to conventional modes of marketing. Contrary to traditional modes of marketing, social media advertising adopts a two-way traffic kind of approach.
It accords you an opportunity to:
- Deliver your tailored message
- Target a specific market
- Engage with your customers on one to one basis or a one-to-many basis and gauge their feedback
Marketing through social media is not just another buzz but rather an avenue that provides you an opportunity to engage with customers from any part of the world, interact with the same while improving the product or service you deliver through the feedback you get. It’s a means through which a person can correctly brand and improve the image of their business. While there are many advantages related to social media marketing, a proper strategy is required if a business is to enjoy increased traffic and conversions.
What role do social media play in marketing?
To believe that social media has no role in marketing is suicidal in every aspect. In fact, it spells doom for your business and a cardinal sin that you should never commit. While it’s true that social media plays a big role in marketing, the role is dependent on your business and inadvertently how it best fits your business. Alternatively, it also depends on your efforts, your understanding of the social tools and how you can use them to the advantage of your business. All these are instrumental in increasing engagements, interactions, making the right improvements and ultimately increasing sales.
How does social media marketing work?
Social media marketing can be implemented on three fronts. These are:
- YouTube
Marketing through YouTube entails interacting and engaging with your customers through videos. While videos are a great way to engage with your customers, it’s important that you do it in a proper way so that you attract rather than repulse customers away. If customers deem your video to be in bad light, it can injure your business reputation rather than enhance it.
Social media marketing through Facebook requires that you package your message in the right way for the over 1 billion users on Facebook. It’s all about using Facebook to positively portray your business, your products and services and taking customer feedback into consideration with the aim of providing an even better experience to your customers. The same applies to Twitter though it’s important that you adhere to Twitter and Facebook social etiquette while at it.
In light of the above, no business can afford to ignore social media advertising especially considering that most people spend many hours on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
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