Marketing has evolved itself from being completely non-existent about a century back to today when it is the way of life for every company which wants to literally exist. Marketing orientation has come from the production orientation when the producer’s only aim was to produce the maximum. Companies are not selling mere products but services. There is a holistic approach to marketing communication today. It includes all promotional activities-advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity etc. This is changed with the growth of social media. Social media marketing and online marketing are the trends of the future.
Social media is the media for social interaction. With the growth of internet this media too has broadened its horizons like twitter, Facebook etc. Their reach is increasing every minute. Social media supports democratization of knowledge. It has opened doors for anyone who has internet access and has given an opportunity to organizations to create brand awareness at relatively less cost. This is also called social media marketing which is a relatively inexpensive marketing tool to communicate with customers.
Companies improve on their social media optimization by creating awareness for a brand not by word of mouth but by networking. Social media optimization is an integral part of online reputation management. Various social media agencies have come up which help a company attract more customers. Social media agencies help in driving website traffic primarily from other sources than search engines as done by search engine optimization agencies. Social media optimization is not a one day’s job. It is time consuming and it takes a lot of effort to first build a fan base for a brand and then convert those into loyal customers.
Social Media Marketing is where businesses advertise their products to you through social networks. However as in any industry, there are rules about what advertisers can and cannot do when marketing products to consumers.
The first piece of advice is to ensure that there is full disclosure from anybody you endorse, or that you stay away from endorsing people in the first place. This means that you don’t pay somebody to write a positive review, or if you do make sure that they make it clear to the viewers.
Trust between the reviewer and the person who reads the review is important, and any bias towards or against the product should be avoided wherever possible. If I know that the person who wrote the article was paid by the developer of the product to give it a positive review, I would doubt that article.
Another piece of advice is to interact with your customers through social networks. People who are following your page may ask you questions about your products, and expect you to reply to problems they have. If you just hire a PR company to run your social networks instead of having customer support staff, then when somebody needs help and you ignore them that could lead to a PR disaster.
The social may soon be taken out of social media site Facebook as popularity on the site can now be sold to the highest bidder.
Social media marketing company uSocial.net recently began selling fans and friends on Facebook to businesses and organizations wanting to increase their exposure online and they've now announced they are selling up to 20 million fans at a time, meaning just about anyone with a fat wallet can be more popular than Lady Gaga, at least on Facebook.
The service is based on the principle that people use the site for marketing purposes and the more fans or friends one has on Facebook, the larger their potential client base. uSocial's service facilitates the delivery, or sale, of these connections to a Facebook profile.
The company sells packages of fans starting at $197 for 1000, which they say are all real people and can be targeted to whatever industry the customer's business is in.Some are questioning whether this will remove a lot of the user-driven social aspect from Facebook, however as more businesses turn to advertising their services on the social media site, the demand for services like uSocial's will likely rise in the future.
The vast majority (90 per cent) of technology companies has a
social media presence, And with Facebook recently signing up its 500,000,000th member and Twitter celebrating the 20 billionth tweets, it is evident that the channel is only going to become more influential.
The recent Putting the Social Back in Social Media report from Wildfire studied the social media activity of the firms included in the 2009 Deloitte Fast Tech 50.It was found that Twitter was the most popular social network with businesses, with 74 per cent tweeting, compared to 72 per cent who use Linked-In and 20 per cent who have a company Facebook
profile.
However, while many firms are using social networking sites,
Wildfire found that they primarily used them as a distribution channel to push out marketing messages rather than using them to garner feedback from customers.
In fact, many companies were actually ignoring feedback from
customers which was given via social networking sites, with 75 per cent of companies who received comments from other Facebook users failing to respond.
She added that to use social media to their advantage, firms must get themselves into a completely new mindset and ask themselves what the best way is to reach their target audience via such sites.
Having a social media strategy may be de rigueur for today's marketers, but getting old-fashioned email marketing right is likely to be more important for generating sales.
A survey by digital marketing association E-consultancy found that 36 per cent of shoppers had been influenced to buy a product online thanks to an email marketing message, while 27 per cent said they had bought an item offline for the same reason.
In contrast, a relatively small amount of shoppers turn to social media when gathering opinions on which products to buy: only six per cent of those shoppers quizzed by E-consultancy said they asked for product recommendations on social media sites.
Consumers also confessed they prefer getting promotional messages over email compared to other on or offline methods.
Some 61 per cent of consumers said they prefer getting notifications of sales or special offers through email, while 28 per cent said snail mail and five per cent said through social media sites.
However, email marketing is only well received when it's well targeted: half of consumers complained they thought emails containing irrelevant information devalued the communication.
Location based social network applications are a part of the fastest growing sectors of the digital world. Every day, millions of users broadcast their whereabouts to millions of complete strangers through services such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite and Loopt.
While new technology will always have its evangelists and naysayers, since their introduction, location based social networks have realized more than their share of critics. Recent surveys have shown that these design flaws may affect women more than men.
The Advantages of Location Based Apps
These applications have become incredibly popular for the same reasons that social networking sites like FaceBook add millions of users each week Social networks, and especially LBS apps, prove that people want and even need to be connected to other people, even if they are complete strangers!
There are many benefits to these LBS apps. Users can take advantage of partnerships with businesses that offer coupons and discounts for merchandise. They can contact their friends and share best entrees at a hot, new restaurant. Foursquare users can meet old friends and find new friends and if they are bored, they can play games.
Americans spent more time on social networks than email sites. Just in the past year, social networking's popularity has surged. In June 2009, internet users spent 15.8 percent of their online time on social-media sites; two months ago, that figure had risen to 22.7 percent.
Not only did social networking best email - which garnered 8.5 percent of users' online time in June - gaming did, too. Driven by the popularity of games accessed through social-media sites, gaming took up 10.5 percent of Americans' internet time.
Social networking, gaming and email, account for 40 percent of people's time on the web.
Among social-networking properties, Facebook was far and away the most popular. Eighty-five percent of social networking occurs on Facebook, which recently added its 500 millionth member. The site is so popular that it has - at various times - surpassed Google as the most-visited site on the internet. Facebook has yet to irrevocably seize the lead from Google, but that day may be nearing; shows, social networking is a phenomenon with staying power.
Social media marketing works. There is no doubt about that. Social sites are a prime way for an enterprising entrepreneur to promote their online business and build their brand. Facebook, for instance, has an estimated 500 million members and continues to grow at a phenomenal rate. So, using Facebook as part of your social media marketing strategy is good business sense.
What can you do to help safeguard your privacy on Facebook?
Here are a few timely tips:
• Understand how the “Like” button works. If you click on the universal Like button from anywhere on the World Wide Web, you should be aware that you are authorizing Facebook to post your internet activity directly into your Facebook profile as well as your friends’ news feeds. In other words, everyone will be able to see where you have been on the internet. This could prove to be mighty embarrassing, especially for an online merchant, depending on the websites you might visit in your spare time.
• Use Facebook’s Applications and Websites privacy settings. When you visit that page on Facebook, you will see an option called “Instant Personalization.” You should UN-check the Allow button. This will opt you out of instant sharing such as the Like button and will delete your info from Facebook’s partner sites.
• Decide how much information you want your Facebook friends to be able to share about you. To tweak your privacy settings in this area, go to the Applications privacy setting page and uncheck the appropriate boxes, depending on how much you are willing to share.
You will need to keep an eye on things regarding your Facebook privacy, as more changes and new applications will probably come along in the future.
Facebook is an awesome platform for social media marketing, but you should be proactive in protecting your privacy!
