What is Social Media Marketing? Introduction, Definition & Benefits

What is Social Media Marketing?

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The history of social media dates back to as early as 1969 but the latest social media trends online were noticeable only after the launching of Friendster in 2002 and MySpace in 2003. Followed by these two initial social media players, what is today's world's largest and most popular social media site Facebook was launched in 2004. A decade after the launching of this iconic social media site, we can say that the entire social media industry has come a long way and the social media or social networking sites have become an integral part of our life in many ways. Today we wake up on Facebook, sail through the day with Twitter, try to expand our friends circle with Google+ and build our professional network through LinkedIn. There are numerous social media sites to cater to the needs of the internet community. The original intent of social media was to help people remain connected no matter where they are and what they are doing. Today, while social media platforms serve the original purpose, they have also outgrown its original purpose and have become a haven for online marketers. Yes, social media sites today have a very high marketing value. Social media marketing has today become a mainstream strategy. It is hard to imagine online success without social media marketing efforts today. You will need to secure your space in the social media sites if you want to effectively deal with your online competition.

Social Media Marketing can be defined as the process of promoting a brand, product or service in the top social networking sites through the use of various content sharing strategies to achieve better online visibility, improve brand familiarity, attract targeted traffic and to enhance customer relationship. Social Media Marketing aims at influencing customers' buying decisions through constant engagement. Social Media Marketing can take the form of paid and free promotions.

Social Media Marketing may not be for the one that is used to "Million hits overnight" kind of programs. Social Media Marketing is more of a long shot that aims at providing more sustainable results without risking your domain reputation with the top search engines like Google. Social media marketing, to put it simply tries to grab the attention of the target audience and to retain that attention with constant user engagement. The idea here is not to allow your target audience distracted with the other competing brands. You try to establish and build relationship with your customers. If you want to be a successful social media marketer, you will need to avoid the temptation to hard selling of your products in the social media sites. You should learn to be subtle and thereby elicit interest. With this backdrop in mind let us take a closer look at what exactly is social media marketing.

Social Media Marketing may not be for the one that is used to "Million hits overnight" kind of programs. Social Media Marketing is more of a long shot that aims at providing more sustainable results without risking your domain reputation with the top search engines like Google. Social media marketing, to put it simply tries to grab the attention of the target audience and to retain that attention with constant user engagement. The idea here is not to allow your target audience distracted with the other competing brands. You try to establish and build relationship with your customers. If you want to be a successful social media marketer, you will need to avoid the temptation to hard selling of your products in the social media sites. You should learn to be subtle and thereby elicit interest. With this backdrop in mind let us take a closer look at what exactly is social media marketing.

We have already noted earlier in this article that the original intent of the social media sites is to help people remain connected and that social media sites have outgrown its own original purpose. To answer the question what makes social media sites a hotplate for marketing, we need to take a closer look at the user trends in the social media sites, which has probably triggered the social media marketing trends.

There are numerous social media sites and many new sites are constantly emerging every year, one outdoing the other. So here are some important reasons that make social media sites a marketing hotplate:

# Every day millions of people pass through these social media sites.

# Every day hundreds of hours are spent in social media sites cumulatively by the internet users.

# Social media sites are crowd pullers or magnets that attract traffic.

# Social media sites are used by all age groups.

# Both genders make use of social media sites.

# Users with all sexual orientations can be found here.

# People with all economic backgrounds and all walks of life make use of social networking sites.

# On an average internet users log in to their account at least once per day in most of the social media sites.

# Social media sites make information sharing easy and social media sites have viral effect.

# Search engines keep a tab on the social media signals and top search engines allow social media signals to influence their search results. In other words, top search engines including Google love social media platforms.

When we are trying to understand what exactly is social media marketing, we need to also understand what you should not do with social media. One of the important social media taboos is "hard selling." Why is hard-selling a social media taboo? Internet users including yourself, everyone is constantly being bombarded by loads of marketing material from all directions on the web. So the last thing they will expect in social media sites is another marketing campaign because social media sites are considered a place to relax, unwind and build friendship. If you try to sell your products or services to this brand, you are only likely to frustrate your audience and they will detest your brand for such efforts. Hard-selling in social media platforms will prove to be counterproductive, rather than attracting people to your brand, it will repel them away.

You can answer this question for yourself and all you need to do is to just visit any of the popular social media sites and make a quick list of brands that you find in the social media sites. You will find all types of brands from all possible niche markets in social media sites. Social media is for everyone and all types of businesses can benefit from social media marketing.

You can answer this question for yourself and all you need to do is to just visit any of the popular social media sites and make a quick list of brands that you find in the social media sites. You will find all types of brands from all possible niche markets in social media sites. Social media is for everyone and all types of businesses can benefit from social media marketing.

1. Identifying The Audience

One of the follies of many social media marketers is not clearly defining their own target audience. Most business owners just presume that they know their target audience. This is a very crucial step because the direction of your entire social media marketing campaign will depend very much on the nature of your target audience. If you fail to have clarity on your target audience, you are likely to travel in the wrong direction and this could lead to ineffective social media marketing campaigns and draining of your marketing budget on wrong marketing strategies.
 

2. Identifying The Preferred Social Media Platforms

For each niche market, there will be one or more preferred social media networks. This will depend very much on the composition and the nature of your target audience. Before you setout to make any aggressive marketing efforts, you should know whether you are targeting the right platforms or social media sites where you have the highest concentration of your target audience.
 

3. Identifying The Right User Engagement Strategies

The next important step is to identify the best user engagement strategies. You will have to make use of the knowledge that you acquired on your target audience. User engagement strategies will depend on two important factors namely the nature of your audience and secondly on the social media usage pattern of your target audience.
 

4. Blueprinting Comprehensive Social Media Marketing Strategy

You should avoid taking random social media marketing strategies. Try to create an elaborate social media marketing plan incorporating as many social media platforms a possible. You will need to make long term plans and not limit yourself to monthly social media plans. You should also set decisive social media goals, constantly check on your efforts and measure the results regularly to ensure that you are traveling in the right direction.
 

5. Profile Creation

Once you are done with all the groundwork, you should start creating impressive profiles for your brand in the top social media sites. Make sure that your social media profiles are professional.
 

5. Regular Engagement

You need to constantly be making regular engagement efforts. It is important to have a regular social media engagement schedule to continually reinforce your brand image in the social media sites.

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Social Media Marketing has far-reaching benefits on your brand than the few benefits that we list below.
 

• Improves your brand's online visibility.
• Helps in attracting highly targeted traffic to your website.
• Takes your brand closer to your target customers.
• Makes it easy for your customers to learn more about your brand.
• Helps you reach out to your target audience in the most efficient way.
• Instrumental in generating new leads.
• Helps in understanding your customers' requirements better.
• Enhances customer loyalty.
• Improves your search engine ranking in a Google friendly way.
• Reduces your overall marketing expenses with extensive customer reach at lesser costs.
• Establishes your brand authority in your industry.
• Overthrows your online competition in the most effective way.

• Use social media marketing as one of your mainstream marketing strategies.
• Put in regular social media marketing efforts if you want to enjoy success with your efforts.
• Never start your social media marketing efforts before you have created your long-term social media plans.
• Use clean strategies, avoid short cuts.
• If you receive reputation attacks in social media do not react but respond to the attack in a composed way. Try to explain yourself clearly to make your side of the story clear to the readers.
• Spend time creating content that is shareable and content that is worthy of sharing.
• Time your social media posts so as to improve the effectiveness.
• Make use of industry expertise. Don't try to rely on your own resources completely but get as much external help as possible.
• Take upon your social media responses on to yourself only if you are 100% confident that you can do justice to your own social media requirements. You will need to understand that it is not just a one day show but it is an ongoing process. You will need to put in several hours every week. If you should foresee that you don't have the luxury of time or the required skills to your advantage, then it is best to hire a social media marketing manager that will take care of your requirements in a professional way and ensure consistent efforts.

There is no alternative to Social Media Marketing. No matter what other marketing efforts that you are taking to promote your brand online, you should take highly focused social media efforts. All the efforts that you make should be aligned with the latest Google algorithm. Never go overboard with keyword density needs. With carefully orchestrated social media marketing efforts you will be able to easily take your brand to the next level of the online competition.