Online Marketing Why Your Business Needs To Use Social Media Marketing
One of the biggest phenomena that the internet has created is social media. Its use and influence are so widespread amongst the world’s online population that any business which wants to build its customer base and increase profits needs to ensure it has an effective social media marketing strategy in place.
Social media is a bit of a catch-all term for several sites and applications even though many people think it just refers to Facebook and Twitter. In reality, social media consists not only of these two but also sites like Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, SnapChat and many others that are too numerous to mention in a single article. Blogging can also be placed under the social media banner too.
Social media is essentially a means to interact with others on the internet and primarily is the sharing of information. This is done using text, images, audio, and video. The information shared can be as simple as a 140-character text message or at the other end of the scale a feature length video.
Where social media marketing can help you to build your business is by using the platforms that people send each other personal messages and information, to send similar messages about your business.
To do this requires the setting up of profiles, pages and groups under your business name or brand. You can then use these to post messages, useful information, attractive images, and interesting videos which your followers will like or enjoy and will therefore be keen to share them with others.
This sharing element is the foundation upon which social media marketing is built as it spreads the word about your products, gets your logo and branding in front of people who have never heard of you, and creates advocates for your business. The pace at which people get to hear about your business will depend on the frequency with which you make new posts, the quality of them, how conducive they are to being shared, and the number of followers you have.
This growth doesn’t happen overnight but it is exponential, meaning although it can seem slow in the beginning, as more and people become followers of your profiles, the pace of growth accelerates. This viral effect allows you to reach more and more people across the internet, and the beauty of it is, the cost is virtually zero.
Social media marketing can be done with very little money being spent in relation to the number of potential customers you can reach. You might employ someone to manage your social media profiles and to post to them on a regular basis. As your presence grows this operation might need to be expanded, but even then, costs are minimal compared to other advertising and marketing outlets.
If you wish to invest significantly in social media marketing, some platforms give you the option of using paid advertising. This can give you the ability to target your ads so that they are only seen by specific groups of people as identified by their likes and interests. This makes the ROI significantly higher as you are not wasting marketing budget targeting those who have no interest whatsoever in your products, but instead are reaching those who do.
One of the biggest phenomena that the internet has created is social media. Its use and influence are so widespread amongst the world’s online population that any business which wants to build its customer base and increase profits needs to ensure it has an effective social media marketing strategy in place.
Social media is a bit of a catch-all term for several sites and applications even though many people think it just refers to Facebook and Twitter. In reality, social media consists not only of these two but also sites like Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit, SnapChat and many others that are too numerous to mention in a single article. Blogging can also be placed under the social media banner too.
Social media is essentially a means to interact with others on the internet and primarily is the sharing of information. This is done using text, images, audio, and video. The information shared can be as simple as a 140-character text message or at the other end of the scale a feature length video.
Where social media marketing can help you to build your business is by using the platforms that people send each other personal messages and information, to send similar messages about your business.
To do this requires the setting up of profiles, pages and groups under your business name or brand. You can then use these to post messages, useful information, attractive images, and interesting videos which your followers will like or enjoy and will therefore be keen to share them with others.
This sharing element is the foundation upon which social media marketing is built as it spreads the word about your products, gets your logo and branding in front of people who have never heard of you, and creates advocates for your business. The pace at which people get to hear about your business will depend on the frequency with which you make new posts, the quality of them, how conducive they are to being shared, and the number of followers you have.
This growth doesn’t happen overnight but it is exponential, meaning although it can seem slow in the beginning, as more and people become followers of your profiles, the pace of growth accelerates. This viral effect allows you to reach more and more people across the internet, and the beauty of it is, the cost is virtually zero.
Social media marketing can be done with very little money being spent in relation to the number of potential customers you can reach. You might employ someone to manage your social media profiles and to post to them on a regular basis. As your presence grows this operation might need to be expanded, but even then, costs are minimal compared to other advertising and marketing outlets.
If you wish to invest significantly in social media marketing, some platforms give you the option of using paid advertising. This can give you the ability to target your ads so that they are only seen by specific groups of people as identified by their likes and interests. This makes the ROI significantly higher as you are not wasting marketing budget targeting those who have no interest whatsoever in your products, but instead are reaching those who do.