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With the arrival of Web 2.0, social marketing has landed! Social networking sites are now squarely on the Internet marketing map. This genre is exploding online, with thousands of Internet entrepreneurs regularly becoming happy new users. In fact, you could say it's all the rage in marketing online.
What is Social Marketing? The last several years have seen the rise of online communities centered around specific social networking sites. While providing a fun new way to interact with friends and family, as well as find new friends and relocate
old ones, a unique marketing opportunity has also arisen. Social marketing involves joining and participating in an online community for the purpose of networking. This provides an opportunity to increase exposure for your product,
service or brand. Which can lead to an increase in traffic to your website, which may bring with it other benefits, such as an increase in sales. In short, it's good publicity and it works. As more people discover the vast array of information available through these networking sites, the conversations become richer and more lucrative. Lets take a quick look at five popular social marketing tools.
Twitter
A lot of folks are "tweeting" away these days, thanks to this clever micro-blogging service. While you may find everyone from your favorite sports broadcaster to your next door neighbor on Twitter, this free service has become particularly relevant to social media marketing. Tweet your way to a large email subscriber list.
Users on Twitter are able to both read and send the updates of other users. These updates, known as tweets, are text-based posts which are displayed on the user's profile page. These tweets may also be sent out to lists of email subscribers.Twitter provides an easy, user-friendly way of keeping your email list up-to-date with your latest goings-on. • Teaching a new class?
• Offering a new ebook?
• Promoting a new website?
Post it all on Twitter. As your visibility grows, so does your subscriber base.
Blogs
Blogs, or weblogs, originally became popular as a kind of online diary.
Your niece or nephew may have gone on a road trip and blogged their way across the continent. Photos and video of their trip were posted daily, along with the text of their latest adventures, with perhaps some music thrown in just for fun. Update your subscribers with a new blog post. The topic oriented nature of a blog has made it an ideal candidate for marketing online. New, relevant information in your field can be posted regularly (daily, if you wish), to keep your list of subscribers up-to-date. You may use your blog to explore a particular facet of your product or service. Although many blogs are primarily textual in nature, graphics, video and links to relevant websites may also be featured. Some blogs include an interactive format for comments from readers. As more folks find your blog online, your email list grows in number,
and most likely so does the traffic to your website.
LinkedIn
Since its launch in May 2003, LinkedIn has mainly been used for professional networking. A popular site, LinkedIn focuses primarily
on business.
You are a networking professional on LinkedIn.Users create and maintain a professional profile for themselves. Popular with Internet entrepreneurs and freelancers of all kinds, new contacts can easily be made, and the potential for new business relationships is high. Networkers can extend their professional contacts, within their own business and beyond. Partnerships and other beneficial arrangements can be a by-product of contacts made through this site. For those networkers on the go, LinkedIn also offers a mobile version.
Facebook
This free social networking website has become a popular place to reconnect with old friends, and stay current with new ones. There are various networks and groups to join, some organized by city or region, others by school or interest. You can create your own group, which can make it easier for people to find you, as well as define a place for those interested in you and your brand, product or service. Create a friendly, visible presence on Facebook. You post your profile using the Facebook interface. Friends are then added to your list by sending them an invitation. With their confirmation, you can view each others' profile as well as send personal messages. You can also post public messages, available to be read by their friendship list. The conversation on Facebook tends to be casual in nature. Weaving a thread of information about your home based business, among other musings, can go a long way.
YouTube
With ever increasing popularity as the go-to place for the latest cultural offering, YouTube has also gained momentum as a social marketing phenomenon. This video-sharing website, with user-friendly uploading capability,
is a social media site that has put Internet marketing on its ear.
Or perhaps I should say eye. A short, original video is worth a thousand words.
While anyone can watch a video
on YouTube, registered users are allowed to upload an unlimited number of their own videos. A registered account is called a channel. It's like having your own little TV station, right on the Web! For marketing purposes, you can create your own YouTube channel, and broadcast your message to the World Wide Web.
Social Marketing Sampler
How do you determine which of these sites or methods is right for you? Take each of them for a test drive! Use a search engine to locate blogs for some folks in your field. Check them out. Get on their subscriber list and see how that works. Notice what they're writing about, and how often they post new material. What do you like? What new ideas does it spawn? Check out videos on YouTube. Search for relevant material and watch a bunch of it. Notice how many viewings any particular video channel has received. When a video makes you feel like clicking on the link to their website, it's working! Join Facebook and LinkedIn and notice what people are doing to promote themselves. Note the difference between how the two sites function. Which do you like better? And of course, check out Twitter. You don't have to tweet yourself in order to do this. Just find some relevant tweeters and read their material. If it appeals to you, join the fun! Social marketing is an adventuresome undertaking that can reap many benefits for your online business. Enjoy your research!
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