Thursday, January 29, 2009

Social Marketing

By Justin Harrison

Social marketing is a part of the Web 2.0 development that uses social networking sites and blogs to market your product or business on the world wide web. This kind of advertising makes for a more personal connection between you and your customers.

Transparently pushy advertisements have no place in social marketing. An advertisement that is perceived as being too aggressive will very likely turn readers in the opposite direction. Your goal should be creating the perception that you are an expert in your field so that potential buyers will have comfort in the relationship they'd like to create with you. Having trust in this regard is very important, it should seem more like you are having a conversation online instead of a shouting match. The audience you target will come in if the words are right. This all is made even easier with social commentary sites such as YouTube and MySpace where the community is everything.

When you start a business, the first thing you need to really think about is, what product or service is needed. And once you figure that out, then you can tailor your product or service to the needs of the public. And then you can figure out how to market it. And make sure you start a web page and come up with an idea that will really catch people's attention.

Bloggers and web designers are commonly looking for interesting content they can use on their web sites. If you are able to give them quality articles they may begin using them on their sites. With this method you can create thousands of hyperlinks to your web site with every article you write. Popular articles are capable of being read by many bloggers that would like to comment.

A marketing campaign exists to increase revenue and sales, and social marketing is no exception. Your business exposure in social media won't always generate a sale, but it is like word of mouth advertising that spreads awareness of your business in a friendly way that will eventually lead to more sales.

One of the best things you can do for your business is word of mouth, you can talk to people whether it be on the internet in social forums or on the street or in stores. And you would be surprised as to how many customers you will start seeing.

This brings us to our last point. Quite simply the greatest benefits of social marketing are it's, "Do it yourself," approach. There is absolutely no outsourcing required. Anyone who can do basic computer operations can access the internet, and thus take advantage of all the numerous social networking sites. These sites will greatly help gain exposure of their product or service. - 16089

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