What is social media marketing? In plain English; social media marketing is a medium that you can use by using popular social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube to build brand awareness and traffic back to your website or blog. The purpose of this medium is to engage with visitors and to encourage them to share your content with their own network. The content shared can spread from user to user, having a similar effect as traditional word of mouth marketing.
When your message and content goes viral, it can add many positive benefits to your marketing campaign. If a negative message about you or your business goes viral, it could also have devastating consequences.
Social media marketing gives you and your business the opportunity to connect and engage with your customers, competitors, vendors, and prospective customers on the social web. Using a blog, images, videos, and interacting in a casual way on the social web are just a couple of ways you can use the social web to gain attraction. On the social web, your message is interactive, and interested people who want to join the conversation can act on the message. They can tweet it, like it or send it along to their own favourite social media channel increasing the overall reach of your message.
Global networking with social media marketing
Social media marketing offers many benefits when used to network with people on the social web. Thought leadership can be established, increased brand awareness, deals are made, and products and services are sold with digital word of mouth marketing (social media). Social media channels such as LinkedIn expands business opportunities and it has made networking global.
Along with all the benefits associated with social media marketing, there are a couple of drawbacks. For example; it takes a great deal of effort and time to be successful with social media marketing and it should be an ongoing initiative. You can decide to outsource the social media work, but if it does not successfully influence and control the outcome, the results will not benefit you or your business. If not done correctly, your business can risk the loss of positive online credibility. Bad news spreads like a wildfire, and it is extremely difficult to control, and to repair.
Learn everything you can with social media
If you want to start with marketing on the social web through word of mouth marketing, it is essential that you learn all the ins and outs of this medium that can take some effort, time, experience, and training so that it doesn’t backfire on you. There are thousands of social media channels that allows interactivity. It is important that you select the right channels and start with a social media marketing campaign that will suit your brand and business. Social media is a two-way communication method that facilitates word of mouth marketing.
