What is social media marketing

What is
Social Media Marketing?

http://thedemystifier.com

Traditional Marketing Tools

Before the internet we had one-
way communication methods - or
‘push’ marketing as it’s sometimes
known

• television & radio programmes
interrupted by adverts
• adverts stuck in the middle of
magazine articles
• direct mail through our doors
• companies ringing us up


The Internet

The internet brought us
websites ... and with them came
more ‘push’ marketing
methods!

• banner advertising


Internet marketing was different to traditional marketing – websites had to
be found.

Along came Search Engine Optimisation (seo) – placing words &
phrases, that customers were typing into search engines, into website text.

But websites were still mostly brochure sites ... advertising products or
services.

Because of the internet consumers now had a lot more choice, they didn’t
have to buy from high street shops or local business suppliers, they had a
whole world of shops and companies to choose from.

Businesses started to get wise to this – they realised that internet
marketing needed more of a ‘pull’ strategy.


Businesses realised that getting people to their website was only half the battle – it
was keeping them there that was proving difficult.

I mean who would deliberately watch a television channel that was only adverts.

Websites then were all about ‘this is us ... been around 100 years ... we do this ...
blah, blah. It was all about the company.

Consumers wanted to know what was in it for them.


Along Came Blogs

Blogs are a page within the website
but not a sales page. Companies
could post short articles which
included words & phrases for seo
purposes. But instead of being sales
oriented they gave customers added
value ... by giving tips and free
information that helped.

Blogs allowed prospective customers
to get to know, like and trust a
company and were consequently
more likely to buy from them.


But at the time, companies were still relying on search engine
optimisation, online directories and pure chance for their websites and blogs
being found.


Enter Social Media Sites


Because people are social in nature, when sites like My Space and Bebo
came out practically everyone under the age of 25 wanted be on them –
talking to their friends, meeting new people and sharing photographs and
info about concerts, bars and restaurants they were going to.

It took a while for businesses to realise that more and more people were
spending their time on the internet, on social media sites, and less time
watching television and reading magazines & newspapers ... In fact they
were actually watching television and reading the news on social media
sites!

Businesses realised that they needed to be where their customers were, so
they jumped on the social media bandwagon.


Facebook replaced My Space and Bebo, Twitter came along and YouTube
popped up. Older people started to join in and now the largest age group on
Facebook is 18 to 34, the fastest growing age group 65+

As well as general social sites, business social sites started to pop up ....
ecademy.com was very popular in the noughties (and I was proud to be a
part of their Customer Service Team back in 2004) ... now Linkedin is the
number one professional business networking site with over 150m users.

Businesses started to realise that social media sites were very effective
marketing channels.

But they’re not advertising channels.


Push v Pull Marketing
Social media marketing is very much a ‘pull’ marketing strategy.

People have to click a Like button, click a Follow button, or accept a request
to connect ... customers have to allow you to put your messages in front of
them.


So your messages need to be
useful, entertaining, educational, inform
ative ... basically helpful to your
customer. Useful
Social media sites are ideal places to put
links back to your blog pages, links to
Entertaining
event registration pages, links to forms
where you can capture names & email
addresses ...
Educational
and especially ideal places to get to Informative
know your customers and let them get
to know you.


Social media is not only a great way to move people over to your blog, but
the sharing capability of Facebook, Twitter etc. helps you reach a much wider
audience than was ever possible.

You tell a friend offline that you really enjoyed that meal in a restaurant last
night and you’ve told one person.

Post that same comment on Facebook or Twitter and you’re potentially
telling millions of people!


If you’d like more information on how to use social media marketing to help
your business find new customers & keep existing customers coming back for
more come and connect with me at:

www.twitter.com/kljsocialmedia
www.facebook.com/kljsocialmedia
www.linkedin.com/in/kljsocialmedia
You can also read my blog at:


Hope to see you soon 
Karen L James
Demystifying social media for small businesses


What is social media marketing

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