Social marketing and social media Marketing are the latest trends in Internet marketing. These techniques are considered important tools in the fight against time-consuming search engine optimization processes. Though the terms social marketing and social media marketing are widely dominating in academia, social marketing is fast becoming popular among researchers and practitioners alike. This is mainly due to the fact that social marketing has proven effective in delivering results, reducing costs, increasing visibility and increasing sales.
Social Media marketing focuses on the usage of social sites and platforms to promote products and services. The core principle of this type of marketing is enhancing brand awareness. Social media marketing focuses on the core principles of online selling – providing useful content, getting people involved, building relationships and, ultimately, increasing sales made through online transaction. In short, social marketing refers to the use of various social sites and platforms to spread information and generate interest. It is one of the fastest growing advertising channels in the world today.
Social media marketing revolves around various factors such as creating user communities and promoting products and services to these communities. The target audience can be segmented based on age, location, gender and many other parameters. For instance, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter can be used to categorize target audiences such as female fashion enthusiasts, teenage fashion followers, professionals and so forth.
As already explained above, social marketing refers to using social network sites and platforms to reach prospective consumers. Social media tools include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Digg, Flickr and many more. As per a recent research, social marketing has the potential to reach millions of people globally. This huge potential has prompted internet companies to focus their attention on this highly lucrative segment of the market.
There are a number of benefits that you can derive from the practice of social marketing and it is one of the most effective ways to attract targeted audience for your product. To start with, social marketing refers to building awareness about your product. You can do so by sharing videos, photos, blogs, articles, reviews etc. on these sites. By doing this, you will be able to reach potential customers. Moreover, with the help of these sites, you will also be able to build a strong community around your product thereby reaching out to a wider segment of the target audience.
However, you cannot expect sales made on a whim. Social marketing depends on a number of factors. Among them are visibility and reputation. In the realm of online marketing, visibility is very important because if your product is not visible to potential customers, then you won’t be able to make sales. On the other hand, reputation is equally important because without reputation your efforts will go to waste.
In terms of presence on social media platforms, Twitter is considered to be an excellent platform. It is because it allows you to reach out to prospective consumers. Therefore, when you start using twitter for marketing purposes, you have to ensure that you have interesting information and facts to share. Moreover, you have to upload tweets that will strike a chord with prospective consumers and keep your followers posted on any new development regarding your product and/or services.
Instagram is another great social media platform where you can reach prospective consumers. Instagram marketing actually uses both twitter and Instagram as its tools. When you create an account on Instagram, you can upload pictures related to your product and use the tags on twitter to attract customers. This will allow you to connect with users who will be interested in your products and services.
