subject: What About Social Media Marketing? [print this page] Most small businesses will already realize just how important it is to have a website. However there's more to having a web presence than having a mere website. You also need to market your site to make it appeal to as many people as possible.
Marketing will help your business to stand out from the competition and allow you to demonstrate your unique selling point.
Marketing
Internet marketing is very popular with web masters because it is a very useful way to attract new visitors to your website. However you must realize that nothing in this world is easy. If you want to make your site successful then you're going to have to put in lots of long hard hours.
There's just no such thing as an overnight success story, even in the case of the internet. If you see anyone that has become successful quickly then you can bet that there has been a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes. Their big break might be the first time that you hear anything about them which is why they seem to of become successful overnight.
Social Media Marketing
Most forms of marketing are traditionally one way. This means that you get the opportunity to tell your customers about your products or services. However you will probably be unable to allow them to get in touch with you easily.
Experts estimate that around 25% of these messages are believed by people that read them. However people are much more trusting when other people tell them something.
Social media marketing can be used in a similar way to word of mouth marketing. This is because there is a large collection of people all talking and discussing various things. If you can use these social networking networks to get your brand out there then you will be able to make a name for yourself.
Social media sites have become fantastic places to market your products using something known as relationship marketing. But which tools can you use to make this a reality?
Blog
You can use your blog as a very important part of your marketing campaign. Many big businesses are also starting to use blogs because they provide a valuable form of communication.
It's a good idea to use a self hosted blog because this way you can control whether or not any adverts are displayed on your website. Using one of the free services may be easier however you will not have anywhere near as much control.
Face book
You should be able to use the fan page of your face book account to promote your business. The fan pages are indexed by search engines and this makes them very valuable. It's also possible to create more than one fan page if required.
YouTube
YouTube is a very useful site for social media marketing. You can also use YouTube to create viral marketing campaigns which could potentially take the internet by storms. Viral marketing campaigns are designed so that they spread by themselves. This is possible with YouTube if an interesting video is created which people want to share.
