Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter are still relatively new. While they seem to have been around forever owing to how simply ubiquitous they are today, they have in fact only been around for the last few years when you actually think about it. While they have found a very important place in our every day lives though, it seems that many people still aren’t really sure what they are, and many people aren’t really sure how to use them. This is more true for businesses and brands than any one else – here you have an incredibly powerful tool that you can use to reach and communicate with millions of people, and very few businesses are effectively using social media marketing. Here then we will look at why social media marketing is so powerful and how it can be used more effectively for companies.
For many organizations the number on way to promote themselves online is through SEO. Of course this has a great value as most people will still find what they are looking for online by going to Google and simply typing in a keyword. If your site comes up first? Well then that’s where they are going to go and you will likely reap the business.
However at the same time social media marketing fulfills a slightly different niche. You see to find something on Google you have to be looking for it, and even then you have to decide between a lot of competition. What social media marketing mimics however is word of mouth – allowing people to ‘spread the word’ on a good product or service through ‘liking’, ‘sharing’, ‘retweeting’ or whatever else, and to then let their friends know about it.
Many people in fact will check Facebook and Twitter before they go on Google. And often they won’t go on Google at all because they’re not looking for. They go online to use Facebook because of the powerful social draw it holds. This same power of sociability means that when their friends posts a link to a viral advert and seems to like it, or invites them to a group, they are far more likely to check it out or to join up. That then means that although they previously knew nothing about the company, they are willing to accept the advertizing and they have already seemingly received a recommendation for it by a friend.
And if that person then comments or makes a mention of something then they are very likely to share it as well. This then means that social network marketing has very much a snowball effect – the more people see your marketing efforts, the more it gets shared and the more other people see it. This gains momentum until the point where you are no longer doing any work to promote your item and it is still growing in recognition. This then is one of the strongest ways to strengthen your brand.
And this is more relevant now than ever with Google updates being designed to show rankings based less on keywords and more on recognizable brands, social data and real world cues.
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