What is Social Media Marketing?

The inspiration for this article lies in a fantastic slide presentation I saw fairly recently on slideshare.net. The presentation, aptly named “What the f*** is social media?” was put together by Marta Z Kagan.

Over 74 slides, one is just hit with fact after fascinating fact – initially about the reach and penetration of social media, and then how to converse with audiences. It’s truly inspiring stuff.

Wikipedia broadly defines social media as the use of electronic and Internet tools for the purpose of sharing and discussing information and experiences with other human beings. Kagan sums it up nicely saying “social media is people having conversations online”.

The mechanisms for these conversations include a number of mediums – some are communicative, others collaborative and others include multimedia or a combination of all three. Social media can take many forms, but one element that consistently sets all of its incarnations apart from “traditional” media, is that it is produced to be shared.

There’s more to social media than social networking sites. While extremely popular (Time magazine wrote in October 2007 that social networking sites are officially more popular than porn!), they are not the only way people connect online. Other media include wikis, microblogging (like twitter), blogs, social bookmarking (like del.icio.us and StumbleUpon), photo sharing (like Flickr), video sharing (like YouTube), pod casts and many others.

How big is this phenomenon really?

There are over two and a half million articles in English on Wikipedia. 75% of Americans watch at least one video online a month. YouTube alone has hundreds of millions of videos being viewed daily. There are over 200-million blogs on the internet. Just under 60% of the people online have joined a social network.

And these are just some of the staggering numbers that get thrown around. This just serves to prove just how powerful and wide the reach of social media is.

What’s the difference between social media and traditional media?

The main difference is that social media is not a monologue. It is a dialogue that the brand sometimes does not lead. People are talking online right now – and this is an aspect of social media marketing.

Research has shown that 90% of people who can skip television adverts do just that.

A 2007 Nielsen report entitled “Trust in Advertising” showed that people trust referrals from their friends and other customers far more implicitly than one-way company messaging. Fundamentally, people don’t care what a company or brand thinks, they care what their friends think.

So, how do you harness this?

The short answer is: subtly. You can’t always lead the conversations – and you need to be honest. Don’t bombard the audience with noise and marketing messages – they will just switch off, or you’ll be lost in the din – neither are optimal situations.

Create personas and communicate. You need to allow your customers to feel ownership of the brand. You need to enable, engage and inspire people. A flat one-sided message is not going to get anybody excited about a brand or product, and this is how to start a buzz.

There’s no real “trick” to social media marketing. What it comes down to essentially, is listening to your customers and participating with them.

Social Bookmarking Backlinks
Bring massive traffic and boost your search engine ranking simply by social bookmarking. 12 video courses for you to get start bring flood of traffic to your website using free method.
Social Bookmarking Backlinks

Social Media Marketing: Game Theory and the Emergence of Collaboration

The emergence of social media represents a challenge to the traditional “one-to-many” model of mass media, which in turn represents a challenge to traditional mass marketing. While the marketing industry scrambles to comprehend and take advantage of new peer-to-peer models of content sharing, marketing industry analysts and press have declared a revolution, insisting that the marketer-consumer relationship is undergoing a fundamental sea change that places power squarely in the hands of the

List Price: $ 119.00

Price: $ 95.20

Social Media Marketing and Small Business

Social Media marketing does not have to be overwhelming, mysterious, or immeasurable, as a promotional tactic for small business. Most business books about social media marketing tend to focus on the variety and types of online media (Facebook, Twitter et al), instead of focusing on developing Social Media marketing plans. It’s no wonder that small business is reluctant to get involved with social media. It seems most Social Media marketing books have lost their business focus and adopted a si

Rating: (out of 1 reviews)

List Price: $ 3.99

Price:

30-Minute Social Media Marketing: Step-by-step Techniques to Spread the Word About Your Business

BIG PRESENCE isn’t just for BIG COMPANIES anymore! A social media marketing handbook for small business owners on the go Social media has opened the door to anyone who wants to promote themselves–including small businesses. Designed specifically for busy small business owners, this book puts you on the fast track to maximizing your business’s visibility and generating profits—regardless of the size of your marketing budget or the time you have to devote to it. 30-Minute Soci

List Price: $ 17.00

Price: $ 11.47

Question by Carl C: What are the main difference between email marketing and social media marketing?

Best answer:

Answer by Gudsud55
email marketing, is gaining popularity over the conventional ‘Direct Mailing Folder’ and social media Marketing.

email is digital, where as ‘Direct Mailing Folder’ and Social
Media Marketing, print is on paper (hard copy). Environment activist propose least use of paper.

Thus, the difference is …………………………. !

What do you think? Answer below!