Social Media Marketing the new way to help your business grows ...

Social media networks havedefinitely changed the way we see and use the internet. These sites have madeit much easier for us to connect to people from across the globe; they?vehelped us reunite with our schoolmates in primary schools and they help us keepthe people we love updated on our lives.

Today, these sites are nolonger just for friends who are trying to stay connected and for family memberswho would like to chat using accessible portals every now and then; they?realso now for internet marketers who are trying to find better ways to reach outto their prospects. As these sites attract millions and millions of peopleworldwide, they became the best places to advertise any type of product orservice.

Social media marketingis a great addition to your internet marketing campaign because it?s relativelyeasy. You don?t need to learn technical skills to make it work for you. All youneed to do is to understand how they operate and figure out how you can takeadvantage of them. All it takes is to create your account, build and expandyour network, and later on, build relationship with your prospects. This isvery important when you?re trying to sell them something.

Aside from ease of use, socialmedia marketing is also relatively cost-effective. Unlike when you?re doingPPC or banner advertising, you won?t be billed by any search engines orwebmaster each time your prospects click your site or blog?s URL. However, ifyou?re willing to spend money for your advertising cost, you can post your adson these sites and expect an instant boost in your traffic.

Another reason to use thistool is it?s extremely effective. People from across the globe are actuallyaccessing these sites almost every single day. What you need to do is to ensurethat they?ll notice you. I suggest that you capture their attention by givingthem exactly what they want. Most of them would surely pay attention if youshare your in-depth knowledge in your niche or if you offer them with usefulinformation. The key here is earning their trust first before you pitch in anyproduct or service.

Below are some social mediamarketing tips that I would like you to know before you use this tool in yourtraffic-generation campaign:

For your blog, ensure that youalways update it by posting new useful content every single day. Make itinspiring and extremely educational that people would want to share it withtheir friends and family members.

Use your Facebook and Twitteraccount to befriend your prospects. Pay attention when they ask questions andbe willing to extend a helping hand. Also, post something informative anduseful on your wall every now and then to convince your prospects that you?rereally an expert and authority in your niche.

Create and post enticing,extremely interesting videos on YouTube. Do presentations or give out how-toguides to help your prospects and to showcase your in-depth knowledge in yourniche. Ensure that you?ll appear ?cool? and accommodating on thesevideos.

There is no doubt in the powerof Facebook,Google+, Twitter and so forth. Their ability to generate trafficcan be unparalleled if done right. Yet I question the impact its influence hason search engine optimization? There is so much importance placed on it that Iquestion why sites that are not associated with any social profiles, stillmanage to rank high on search engines? Keep in mind, I will only discuss thistopic based on my experience, others findings and a bit of logic. After-allsearch engines don?t reveal how social sites can help you. If we all knew theanswer, think of its implications. Is the correlation between SEO and socialmedia a factor that should not be ignored? Let?s start with these threescenarios in mind;

1) You can get people to add,like and share content directly from your website.

2) You can get people to addyou directly on your social network site or from their social networks.

3) The third option emergesfrom third party sites and providers selling likes and fans.

Other methods do exist butthose mentioned above are the most accessible. They also make it easier totarget potential customers and visitors.

The analysis of social mediamarketing

So far, the power in socialmedia sites seems to be generated from the authority and popularity. That isthe more likes, shares, re-tweets and so forth you have, the more importantyour social networking becomes. Bear in mind these must stem from on pagefactors. That is, social signals at page level and social signals at domainlevel according to seo-moz findings. Visitors must add or like your site orshare content that can be directly attributed to your websites? domain. This islogical as search engines always look to satisfy users. Therefore if you haveso many users sharing your content which in effect also spreads your domainlink around, then yes, you deserve recognition. If they like your content thensearch engines will like you. Do not get it confused, spamming likes and tweetsand re-tweets have not been proven to have a positive impact or correlationyet, but the make up of these social sites make them so authoritative that ifyou are lucky and follow certain steps you will gain from it. Continue readingto find out how to gain from it. In the continuation of his article you willfurther understand most of the implications associated with social media.

The traditional marketingmodel was to get as many eyeballs on your product or service?s message aspossible and hope that a percentage of customers purchase. Yellow pages, radioadvertising, direct mail, television commercials, magazine ads, etc.. are examplesof these traditional advertising methods. These conventional types of marketingare no longer effective as many consumers have become blind to the ?one way?messaging. The message has been overdone and people no longer trustadvertisers. A recent survey found that only 14% of people trust ads while76% of people trust consumer recommendations. Accordingly, more marketersbegan seeking alternative ways to connect with potential consumers.

Marketing on the Internet wasoriginally made popular by utilizing Websites and optimizing those sitesthrough Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. While still a worthwhilestrategy, SEO has been updated by Web 2.0 strategies, such as social mediamarketing. Social media marketing is when companies utilize Web 2.0 platforms,such as blogs, social networking sites (like Facebook, Google+, Foursquare,Twitter, & YouTube) and other emerging online marketing tools. The benefitof web 2.0 platforms versus traditional means of advertising, and eventraditional website marketing, is that it involves ?two-way communication?,where users are empowered to generate content and businesses are incentivizedto communicate with their customers.

The days of broadcasting your productor services message out to the masses and hoping for a response are gone.People don?t want to purchase from nameless, faceless companies. Not only areconsumers paying attention to the ?man behind the curtain?, but they also wantto know what others are saying about your product or service. A recent studyconcluded that 80% of US Internet using moms were influenced byword-of-mouth from friends and family when making a purchase decision. Noother media platform allows for small businesses to benefit from consumer wordof mouth advertising like social media marketing.

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing

?????????Increased New Customer Acquisitions ? The mainadvantage of social media marketingis that you will have the opportunity to connect with networks of potentialcustomers that you would otherwise be unable to come across utilizing othertraditional marketing techniques and even SEO.

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?????????Word of Mouth Marketing- Word ofmouth marketing has always been the most influential way to generate sales.With social media marketing, you are able to create raving fans who willvoluntarily promote your product and services to their networks of friends. Ofcourse, if your product or service is poor, you may suffer the reverse benefitsof this.

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Brand Awareness ? Branding your business using social media marketing is muchsimpler, faster, and less expensive to achieve than the traditional advertisingmedium or even website marketing.

?????????Customer Retention ? Web 2.0platforms are the perfect places to communicate with your customers about newproducts, special promotions, or merely to educate them on your business.Through consistent, FREE communication, you can keep your company in front ofyour customer?s eyeballs which will in turn lead to repeat business andreferrals. Remember, the key to this type of communication is to be contentrich; don?t use these avenues to pitch your product or service.

?????????Rapid Results ? The effective andsuccessful implementation of a social media marketing plan will create almostimmediate results for your business. This increase can be quantified throughincreased site traffic, increased lead acquisition, and ultimately increasedsales. Unlike radio or TV ads, where your customers disappear once the ads gooff air, these web 2.0 platform benefits will continue long-term as long as thecommunication and updating of your social media presence is maintained.

Why Aren?t More BusinessesUtilizing Social Media Marketing?

Quite frankly, most businessesdon?t know how to create or implement this type of strategy. What options tosmall business owners have when seeking to create & implement a socialmedia marketing plan:

Hire an employee- while leveraging the time, experience, and services of others is a smartway to do business, many times this strategy fails. Why? Ultimately, it is upto the small business owner to create the plan and manage the employee.However, most business owners don?t understand web 2.0 enough to create a planand haven?t a clue how to manage the employee. Plus, paying an employeeincreases your labor costs, your payroll taxes, your benefit, etc?

Outsource- outsourcing is a better alternative to hiring an employee as you won?thave to hire, train, manage, and pay an employee to perform these functions.However, there is a price for these benefits. Outsourcing these services can bevery expensive. I?ve known social media companies to charge over $1,000 tocreate a Facebook Fan Page. This task takes, at most, 20 minutes to set up.Again, the problem revolves around education. Unless you understand how socialmedia marketing works, then you shouldn?t hire or outsource the tasks unlessyou?re willing to overpay.

Do it yourself- The fact is learning the basics of social media, creating a plan, andimplementing the plan is a task that every business owner is capable ofperforming. Finding the right training programs that will show you step-by-stephow to create and manage web 2.0 platforms is paramount as is utilizingsoftware that will allow you to manage all of your accounts from one simplelocation. With a little bit of an investment in education, you can create yourvery own web 2.0 marketing plan. With a little bit of research, you can find anall-in-one do it yourself social media dashboard that will allow you to performyour web 2.0 marketing in less than 10 minutes a day.

Source: http://www.elclubchileno.com/social-media-marketing-the-new-way-to-help-your-business-grows/

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