What is Social Media Marketing?
Simply put Social Media Marketing is just another marketing channel, but we still need to understand how to use it in order to move forward and understand the ’stickyness’ of social media. SMM is interacting with your internet users, not by selling them your products or services, but by building relationships with them about authoritative information, entertainment, humor or controversy.
“YouTube is a great example of social media, look at what this site did for Mentos and Diet Coke. There was no selling involved, it was entertaining, informative AND everybody loved it!”
Think of this channel as a way to sit in a room with your target market and have a discussion, toss out thoughts and ideas. The communication can be controversial or humorous, the goal of course would be to build a relationship with the people of the community. It’s that relationship that will bring them to your site.
YouTube is a great example of social media, look at what this site did for Mentos and Diet Coke. There was no selling involved, it was entertaining, informative AND everybody loved it! People all over the country have been talking about it and even trying the experiment, making the video a viral marketing explosion. I used this example to show the potential, even though this particular video was not created or distributed by either company, the result is still remarkable. It shows how the social element of the Internet could be used as an avenue for marketing.
Andy Beal states: Fox Interactive Media - and about half a dozen other companies - conducted a study to determine the value of social media for marketers. Sampling 3,000 US internet users, they discovered…
“More than 70% of American’s 15-34 are actively using social networks online, and the research showed social networking sites taking a strong foothold in the primetime hours. 31% of online social networkers claim they spend more time on the Web in general after starting to use a social network.
Brands such as Adidas and Electronic Arts attributed more than 70% of their marketing return on investment to the “Momentum Effect.” That “Momentum Effect” is a cute term coined by the study to define “the impact of a brand within a social network beyond traditional advertising impressions to encompass the “pass along” power of consumer-to-consumer communication.” In other words, viral marketing, tipping point, word of mouth, etc.”
Now those are pretty big numbers, and is worth exploring the avenues to take your business into the social networking arena. Remember to maintain an awareness of how quickly people move from one sphere to another, ’stickyness’ (the ability to keep the visitor interested) is the biggest challenge in this marketing channel.
About the Author: Emily Leach is CEO of Search Engine Academy Southwest; a Certified SEO training company serving New Mexico, Arizona and West Texas. Phone: 505-332-0277 http://www.searchengineacademysw.com
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Written by: Scott Frangos
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Social Media-Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
[...] The Article Writer | Press Releases | Web Content | SEO wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt By Emily Ann Leach Simply put Social Media Marketing is just another marketing channel, but we still need to understand how to use it in order to move forward and understand the ’stickyness’ of social media. SMM is interacting with your internet users, not by selling them your products or services, but by building relationships with them about authoritative information, entertainment, humor or controversy. “YouTube is a great example of social media, look at what this site did for Mentos and [...]
February 16th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
A very interesting article. I think primetime TV should have a lot to fear from this growing need for people to spend time on these social sites. Maybe someone should tell them to get decent programing or all their viewers will be on Facebook.