A few years ago, building a website using a basic template enough to draw in potential customers and generate sales. But now, many businesses have realized the effectiveness of social media marketing in promoting their products and reaching their targeted audience.
Social media marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing. Studies indicate that increasingly more customers are using social media sites to carry out preliminary product research before making a purchase.
What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing involves advertising products, services and information through social media sites. This form of online marketing can help you get targeted traffic to your website and increase brand awareness. The most popular social media sites are Twitter, Google +, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
Over 83 percent of marketers indicate that social media plays a key role in their marketing campaign. More than 40 percent of them want to learn how to find new clients through social media. The biggest advantage of social media marketing is greater business exposure, followed by increased traffic and marketplace insight. Approximately 60 percent of marketers are spending six hours or more on social networks weekly.
Social media websites are easily accessible to anyone with Internet access. Building profiles and promoting products on these sites is completely free. Thus, social media is an inexpensive way for companies to implement marketing campaigns. A marketing campaign can be as simply as having a business blog.
Key Benefits of Social Media Marketing
This form of marketing can help you analyze website traffic and user behavior, build a successful brand, and increase conversion rates. A successful social media marketing campaign can improve brand awareness and increase exposure for your business. Marketers can reach a global audience with minimum investment.
Social media can help you speed up the sales process, generate profit, and increase customer loyalty and trust. Creating social profiles for your business is a great way to let people know that you’re around. You can also follow your competitors on Facebook and Twitter to see what they’ve been up to lately. Here are some of the key benefits of social media marketing:
- Potential lead generation
- Brand awareness
- Cost savings
- Better communication with clients
- Increased sales
- Real-time customer satisfaction
- Revenue growth
- Targeted traffic
- Better understanding of customers’ behavior
- Cost effectiveness
- Measurable results
- High quality backlinks
- Increased exposure
- Better search engine rankings
- Reduced marketing expenses
- New business partnerships
- Increased customer loyalty
- Greater popularity
Small businesses are seeing the greatest results from social media marketing. A study conducted on 3342 marketers revealed that 72 percent of them saw increased traffic as a result of social media. More than 90 percent of those surveyed got more exposure and sales. Statistics indicate that approximately 90 percent of Americans have at least one profile on social networking sites, meaning that your target market is online.
This form of marketing is used by small companies and powerful brands alike. Companies like Deli, Ford, and Star Bucks use social media to connect with their customers and advertise their products. If you share quality content, the world will show up and talk about it. Social networking sites are visited by millions of people every day, which can generate quality traffic to your site. They also have the potential to bring more visibility to your business and improve your website rankings in search results.
Social Media as a Customer Interaction Channel
Social media sites not only give marketers a place to get the word out, but they allow people to interact with one another and build relationships. It takes time to develop relationships that lead to sales. Over 44 percent of marketers who have promoted their business on social networking sites for at least six months were able to build new partnerships.
Since most people use social media to get personal and share information, engage your customers with questions, and present your business in a fun way. All social media sites have search facilities that can show you who is mentioning you and how often. You can also use these sites to ask customers for feedback and handle their inquiries. Twitter and Facebook are excellent tools for managing customer service.
A well optimized Facebook fan page can drive qualified traffic to your website and help you reach a wider audience. You may also set up a blog to promote your business more effectively. Blogs offer great value for small businesses. Write compelling posts and share your expertise.
Let your fans and followers know about your blog. Offer incentives to those who follow you on social media sites. If you are using LinkedIn, you can encourage your customers to give you a “recommendation” on your profile.
Social media sites have become many people’s go-to source for breaking news. Marketers can use social networks to connect with local news sources and members of the press directly. This new form of marketing can help your business grow and establish credibility online. As long as you connect with the right people and share relevant information, there are no limits to how far your influence can spread.
About the Author: This article was provided by OnlineClock.net, a firm that strongly believes in the power of social media marketing (SMM), as you can see by taking a look at their Facebook page and their Twitter profile. Active in social media for many years, Online Clock are now reaping the benefits of increased visibility via various social channels. Your business can do the same!