The Internet viewing public has shifted to social media… to trust based social networks. Business marketing is following. Millions of conversations are happening online each day. This creates a highly involved audience who engages and interacts around focused topics.

Companies who can take advantage of this shift will be able to connect with their target audience and reap the benefits of increased brand awareness and increased sales. Businesses need to re-visit their marketing assumptions to take advantage of the evolution of Web 2.0 social media marketing.

Businesses need to understand that social media marketing is very different than traditional marketing. Social media marketing is about publishing interesting content,  creating relationships and trust. Not about selling.

Social media marketing allows you to promote your brand by making your presence known on targeted social media. These social media include blogs, Facebook, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Digg, etc. Each social media has its own rules of engagement and strategies that need to be developed for each in your social media marketing strategy.

Use social media as a set of tools that allows you access to audiences with shared interests and viewpoints. These tools include blogs, wikis, social networks, social bookmarking, discussion forums and much more. Media can include pictures, video, audio, widgets or text.

Why should a business expect to get from social media marketing?

1. Attention and recognition for the company brands and the company itself.
2. A build up links that will help the company’s SEO strategy.
3. Targeted visitor traffic to the company website.
4. The ability to interact with customers and potential customers
5. Increased sales thru increased brand awareness.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 5:16 am and is filed under Social Media Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.