All About Marketing Through Social Media!

With the advent of better technology and new methods of marketing in an extremely competitive market it is nearly impossible for a corporation to stand out from others without the help of Social Media Marketing. Consequently, social media and social networking websites play an extremely important role inside evolution of a company in this modern age.Which social media is perfect for your company? The answer to that question depends very much on the kind of business you’re in, and mostly on understanding how your target audience functions it.

What is Social Media?

Although most of you probably already know, let me give you a brief introduction to what social media is and the various popular social sites available today. In essence, Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks.

It itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.

These sites allow individuals to interact with one another and build relationships. When products or companies join those sites, people can interact with the product or company. That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social networking site interactions.

How does it help?

Social networking sites and blogs allow individual followers to “retweet” or “repost” comments made by the product being promoted. By repeating the message, all of the users connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Social networking sites act as word of mouth. Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.

One of the building blocks behind social media is engagement. Businesses can now engage or connect with customers and potential customers and also create a positive brand awareness. Not only that, people that you would not normally have been able to contact or connect with can now engage with you

via Facebok, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and the list goes on.

Social media often feeds into the discovery of new content such as news stories, and “discovery” is a search activity. Social media can also help build links that in turn support into SEO efforts. Many people also perform searches at social media sites to find social media content.

How the biggies leverage Social Media

Companies have quickly learned that social media works: 39 percent of companies already use social-media services as their primary digital tool to reach customers, and that percentage is expected to rise to 47 percent within the next four years. Fueling this growth is a growing list of success stories from mainstream companies:

1. Creating a buzz: Eighteen months before Ford reentered the US subcompact- car market with its Fiesta model, it began a broad marketing campaign called the Fiesta Movement. A major element involved giving 100 social-media influencers a European model of the car, having them complete “missions”, and asking them to document their experiences on various social channels. Videos

related to the Fiesta campaign generated 6.5 million views on YouTube, and Ford received 50,000 requests for information about the vehicle, primarily from non-Ford drivers. When it finally became available to the public, in late 2010, some 10,000 cars sold in the first six days.

2. Learning from customers: PepsiCo has used social networks to gather customer insights via its DEWmocracy promotions, which have led to the creation of new varieties of its Mountain Dew brand. Since 2008, the company has sold more than 36 million cases of them.

3. Targeting customers: Levi Strauss has used social media to offer location-specific deals. In one instance, direct interactions with just 400 consumers led 1,600 people to turn up at the company’s stores— an example of social media’s word-of-mouth effect.

Yet countless others have failed to match these successes: knowing that something works and understanding how it works are very different things. As the number of companies with Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, or online communities continues to grow, we think it’s time for leaders to remind themselves how social media connects with an organization’s broader marketing mission.

Marketing’s primary goal is to reach consumers at the moments, or touch points, that influence their purchasing behavior. Social media is a unique component of the consumer decision journey: it’s the only form of marketing that can touch consumers at each and every stage, from when they’re pondering

brands and products right through the period after a purchase.

Surely, Social Media Marketting is here to soar.

- Madalsa Singh