What is Social Media
Social media is content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Examples of social media applications are Google Plus (reference, social networking), Wikipedia (reference), MySpace and Facebook (social networking), LinkedIn (professional networking), Yelp.com (product reviews), YouTube (video sharing), Delicious and StumbleUpon (social bookmarking), Second Life (virtual reality), Flickr (photo sharing), Twitter (microblogging), Blogger and WordPress (blogging), Digg (social news), etc. Many of these social media services can be integrated via social network aggregation platforms like FriendFeed.
Social media is becoming more and more popular:
- 45% of adult Internet users have created content online.
- 1.2 million blog posts per day.
- YouTube has 258 million users, 51% log in weekly or more often.
- Facebook has 101 million users, more than 50% of whom log in daily.
- 77% of Internet users think blogs are good way to get info.
- 67% of consumers say best source for advice on products and services are other consumers.
- 70% of US Internet users watched a video online in May 2009.
- User generated content sites (platforms for photo sharing, video sharing and blogging) comprise five out of the top 10 fastest-growing web trends.
Why Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing has taken the Internet by storm. Suddenly everyone is talking about it. Social Media Marketing (SMM) is using content created by people (comments, pictures, videos) to promote a service or a product.
SMM is about establishing credibility and trust so that people want to do business with you, rather than trying to persuade them through advertising and other traditional marketing methods.
SMM is about:
- Making yourself VISIBLE amongst your target audience.
- Building CREDIBILITY amongst your followers.
- Turning the trust and relationship into PROFIT
7 Tips for Creating a Successful Social Media Marketing Plan
- Define clear objectives.
- Build your profile on the most important social media websites.
- Start a company blog.
- Add value to your posts and website.
- Monitor your virtual community.
- Measure the results from your SMM campaign.
- Make it profitable. Enjoy it.
Look before you jump
Social Media must be a part of your integrated marketing campaign.
The best way to look at social media is to view it as one of many Internet marketing channels, one that has the amazing power to go viral. In the very least, it has the awesome ability to engage your audience in meaningful conversations about your product, issue areas, company, and brand.\
From Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter and beyond, social media can be an overwhelming environment for any company to enter. Proceed Innovative will work on your integrated marketing campaign and to ensure that your company has presence in the right social networks (talking to the right users in the right place). From account set-up to brand management, to monitoring the results, Proceed Innovative will be working with you every step of the way. Contact Us today.
If your have a specific question or would like to discuss another search marketing topic, please post it on our blog or call us at 800-933-2402.
