Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing uses the sound techniques of Internet marketing and the proven power behind word-of-mouth advertising to create instant buzz for a company's products, services and brand. Through highly visited social sites like MySpace and Facebook, interest-driven networks like Stumbleupon and Del.icio.us, and popularity-based sites like Digg and Reddit, companies are using social media marketing techniques to effectively reach their target audiences.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the indirect spread of a website's products, services, information, and opinions through channels and networks formed by various social groups a/k/a "virtual friends". The foundation of these social friendships is built on a type of "web trust", as group members gain popularity by expanding on, debating, support and providing contributions to current topics. And because group members may belong to and hold similar discussions within multiple groups and networks, the viral growth of a topic (or product or company) becomes explosive.

Social Media Marketing: Out With the Old, In With the New

With social sites doing the marketing, the days of soft selling are out and social media marketing is in. Consumers have spoken, and no one wants to hear from strangers about a product or service, or how a company can change the world with its new, revolutionary idea, or how much lower and better a price or product is. When generated by members of the social media websites, your message changes from marketing noise into a viral, marketing “buzz”.

A Few Tools of Social Media Marketing: Blogs, Tags and Sharing

Blogs, short for weblogs, are online commentaries and journals of free speech. Blogs have been very popular over the last few years, especially in the political and high-tech arena. Today's companies use them to discuss relevant topics, promote and review their products and to answer questions posed by consumers. Loved by search engines, linked to by other websites and read by faithful followers, blogs are becoming even more popular as an online marketing tool.

And with blogs, come tags – the author's labeling of a blog post (or any web page) with relevant keywords (tags) to help those searching find the page. Used with blog indexing systems like Technorati, tags are an alternative traffic generator bringing in both traffic and inbound links to tagged pages.

Once a blog entry has been tagged, others looking for topics related to the tagged keywords will be lead to click through. If a visitor finds thinks the information in the blog entry needs to be shared, tools like those provided by Stumbleupon, Digg, and Del.icio.us provide ways to tell others of the new find. As more people "stumble upon", "digg" or find the entry to be "del.icio.us" the more likely the blog will enter into the world of mega-social medias like Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. where it's popularity will continue to grow.

Conclusion

Social media marketing is fast becoming an inexpensive way to gain visibility, build a network of followers and to get the word out on products, services and expertise. When used properly, social media marketing's very nature will create a wealth of inbound links, increase visibility and promote the Internet buzz for a company or organization. The realized effects tend to be an increase in search engine rank, brand trust and the power to influence others online.

With social media marketing, hard sells become obsolete and softsells are seen as welcomed suggestions; visitors become advocates, and supporters become your sales teams.

Social media marketing is the newest way to effectively harness the power of the Web.

About the Author

Brian J. Farrell – Marketing Consultant, helps small business owners find new customers and make more sales in 30 days or less — guaranteed! Call or contact Brian today for a confidential analysis of your business marketing plan and he'll uncover assets you can capitalize on right now, without spending more money on advertising.