Let’s face it – the internet offers the only truly global marketing opportunity to business today, and even local businesses can reach a significantly larger number of prospects with a local area website listing. Craigslist is bigger than the local classified ads and Facebook is more effective at spreading your message than traditional buzz marketing.
The importance of social marketing in business cannot be overemphasized and all that is needed for this to become a major component of any company’s advertising strategy is education or resorting to a third party. No business can afford to ignore social media and expect to retain their market share – no matter what field of business, service or manufacturing they are involved in.
Whether you have a need to advertise products, to generate leas or even to educate prospects, the phenomenal growth of social networking, particularly among the young, is a source of traffic that cannot be neglected. Here are just a few reasons why:
Lead Generation
Lead generation is important to any business, whether it has a website or not. It has become increasingly clear over the past year or two that a website or blog can no longer be relied upon as your only means of generating leads online. Effective social marketing can boost leads, and with it boost your client base and revenue. You will enjoy a far better ROI if you include social media in your online marketing strategies.
The buzz and viral nature of social networking sites provides you with a broader reach than a regular website does, and ignoring this important marketing opportunity would be tantamount to cutting yourself off from a large section of potential business. If leads are money, then social network marketing is a potential gold mine.
The Benefits of Social Networking
There are many individual benefits to be gained by including social media in your internet marketing campaigns. Each of these can also be attained through a regular website, although the addition of social marketing can multiply their effects on your business. Keep in mind that social networking sites should be use alongside a regular website or blog, and not as an alternative to these.
You have great deal more control over the design and content of a website than over a social media page. However, while the one presents your business and products, the other offers a gateway to that website, with potentially many more visitors than any form of regular online advertising could generate.
Branding is one specific benefit that the viral nature of social marketing facilitates. It is easier to achieve brand recognition across a network of social sites than through an individual website. By making good use of social networking, you will be able to design your branding techniques to meet the demographics of the audience presented by each social site.
Users of social networking sites breed relationships, and this is an ideal platform for word of mouth or buzz marketing. If your products or services are worthy of it, customers and clients will pass the word round the network – and keep in mind that social marketing is a global phenomenon. If your business has a universal appeal then you will have the ideal tool to reach a global market.
Social networking sites enable you to employ a range of communication channels, including audio and video, and Facebook PPC advertising reaches a wider audience than Google Adwords. Facebook fan pages allow you to actively promote your products and services, and send the message round the entire social network. You can create landing pages, contact forms and publish live information about new products and services both manually and through automation.
More than SEO
Many businesses focus on search engine optimization as being important to their online success, and rightly so because the traffic that a good search engine ranking can provide is extremely valuable. However, in an era when increasing numbers are foregoing traditional internet sites and are turning to social networking for communication and information, it would be extreme folly for a business to ignore this flourishing opportunity that offers the promise of spiraling leads and contacts.
Social media can make you real to consumers, and you can create relationships with people who are interested in your services and products – relationships that can lead to sales and to clients that will return time after time.
To achieve this, and make the best possible use of the social networking phenomenon, you must know the social sites to use and how to integrate them into your general internet marketing campaigns. You can do this yourself if you have the knowledge, or have somebody do it for you.
If we look after your web design we will incorporate social network marketing into your site, and offer two free updates every year with our low cost, affordable package. Social media cannot be ignored if you want to keep up with your competitors – or even fly past them!
