subject: Basics Of Social Media Marketing For Businesses [print this page] Marketing online is becoming ever more competitive and your potential customers are more than likely being bombarded with all sorts of advertisements for competing businesses. How do you get noticed in amongst all the noise? Social media marketing provides you with a way to build a trusted relationship with both your current and potential customers, giving you the edge.
Social media marketing is a relatively new method of online marketing. It is a way of generating word of mouth advertising on the internet, and is in fact quite similar to offline word of mouth advertising.
By engaging with online communities, building relationships and providing others with your expertise and assistance you will encourage others to spread the word about you and your business. Because recommendations come from trusted 'friends' people are more likely to believe them, as opposed to listening to paid advertising. The more you network online, and the more those you network with in turn network with others, the larger your community of fans and potential customers will become.
There are many different social networking sites for you to get involved with, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There are also plenty of niche online communities and forums that may be suited to your business, so have a look around before deciding what's best for you.
It is important to realise that social media marketing is not about pushing your products on people, and you will quickly alienate people if this is what you do. Rather, it involves pulling people into your network by providing something of value to them, thereby building their trust and building a relationship with them.
In addition to participating in forums and joining in on social media websites, you can also use video to engage with people. YouTube is the most well known site for uploading videos, and provides a great opportunity for you to show your potential customers or clients the human side of your business, or to educate them about certain facets of your industry. If you create a useful or amusing video there's a good chance that people will share it with others, thereby generating even more publicity for you.
Although social media marketing is initially quite time consuming and takes a while to generate a measurable return on the time invested, it is well worth it. There is no doubt that the fans and followers that you gain from this type of marketing are far more loyal than any other, and they will in turn market your business for you to their contacts, creating a snowball effect that builds and builds.
