As an internet marketer, if you aren’t using social media with your current campaigns, you are seriously hurting your chances for success.
To understand the implications of that statement, close your eyes and try to think of ten successful people that you know who don’t have a social media profile. If you are like most people, you probably can’t do it. That’s because social media has taken the world by storm, and for good reason.
Traditional Media
Before social media hit the scene, all we had to rely on for information was traditional media. We got our news, gossip and anything else that caught our interest from television, radio, movie theaters, magazines, newspapers, CDs and DVDs.
These types of traditional media served their purpose but they were very limited in scope. First of all, the information that came from our television screens or magazine pages only went one way. They went from the screen or the page and into our psyches.
That’s as far as the message would go. For business owners, there was no way to target individuals for specific messages. That’s because anyone could turn on the TV or pick up a magazine. Likewise, there was no way for us to respond to and share the information with others.
Sure, marketing companies can choose which magazines to place their ads in based on the demographics of the subscribers, but even that is limited. Sometimes the ads are effective and sometimes they don’t quite reach the right people.
Today, we still have those traditional forms of media, but now we have social media to complement it. Social media presents a totally new way to connect with people as well as get, share and enjoy information like never before.
Social Media
Social media allows us to catch up with friends we haven’t seen in years, and it also allows us a way to gain new business contacts through like minded people. But it’s the way we get our information that makes social media so special.
Unlike traditional forms of media, you are able to interact with the information you’re given. You can make comments on a news story to let your voice be heard, you can share that news story with others, and you can even create your own content that can be shared in the same exact way. That’s the power of social media, and that’s why it’s the new goldmine as far as internet marketers are concerned. Yet most internet marketers never succeed with social media.
In fact, most businesses, especially big business, struggle and fail with social media marketing. Why? Because big business doesn’t know how to talk to their customers. They only know how to pitch and sell. That’s why entrepreneurs and small businesses have a much greater chance of succeeding in the social media realm. It only requires knowing what to do. Unlike traditional media, you can’t just build a website or profile and expect people to come.
People’s attention spans are too short and there are too many attractions, and distractions, online. For that reason, you have to work at social media to garner the attention you are after. Some social media marketing efforts fail because people think social media should replace traditional forms of media, or that traditional media is now considered ‘old school’ or
That’s just nonsense. Social media should complement current marketing efforts, not replace them altogether. The only difference is that you must work at your social media presence. You will need to put in lots of effort to build your target audience and engage those within your community.
But the primary reason most marketers and businesses fail is because they don’t know what they’re doing, or they keep making the same common mistakes over and over. Don’t worry. By the time you are done reading this, you will know exactly what to do to succeed at social media marketing.
First, let’s take a look at what you can gain from implementing social media into your current internet marketing campaign.
Social media can:
- Increase the visibility of your brand, business, charity, band, etc.
- Allow you to monitor how others perceive you and you can actually influence your target group’s opinion of you, your brand, etc. No longer do you need to spend money on a target research group. Social media provides that for free.
- Allow you socially interact with your target audience
- Allow you to build relationships with customers, put out PR fires, and enhance your image in the eyes of potential and current customers
- Allow you to reach more target groups
- Help you increase your income by gaining far more leads, sales, joint ventures, etc.
Why You Need Social Media
To figure out why you need social media, we should first look at a few facts:
- As of January 2010, the social networking platform Twitter had nearly 75 million users and those users were sending over 50 million tweets per day!
- 62% of all Twitter users are in the age group of 24-54
- 90% are heavy users.
- Twitter enables access on the go, real time news
- 19% of internet users report using Twitter or other news service to share updates about themselves and others.
- Twitter allows you to put a human face to your company or brand so that you can engage in real time conversation with your target audience.
- Also, with Twitter, you can gain immediate feedback and respond to questions and/or problems.
- Facebook, currently the reigning champ of social media, has more than 400 million users and the average person has 130 friends.
- With Facebook you can send updates, create polls, post events, advertise a page, convert visitors to fans
YouTube
- YouTube, the world’s most popular video sharing site, is the internet’s second largest search engine, behind only Google.
- 20 hours of content are uploaded every minute and that equals to 28,800 submissions per day.
- There are 16.6 million daily visitors
- And with YouTube Insight, you are able to see the age range, genders of viewers, views over time, where visitors are coming from, where people are tuning in and out, etc.
- LinkedIn, a professional social media site, has seen an influx in membership as a result of the recession.
- Currently, Linked in has over 75 million users and counting.
- Linked In is great for connecting with similar professionals and building relationships
- LinkedIn allows you to extend your profile with feeds from your blog/website
Those are just four social media sites. Five. And when you consider that there are thousands more, with more popping up every day, it should be painfully clear why social media is the next big thing for internet marketers everywhere.
If you want to get more exposure for your campaigns, and maximize profits, you must jump on the train known as the social media phenomenon. One thing is certain: your competition already has a social media presence in place. And if your competitors are getting their own Facebook, Twitter and Digg accounts, then you had better get them to.
Internet marketing is a very lucrative business, but it’s also a very competitive business. If you do not keep with the trends, and that means jumping on board with social media, then you’re not going to go as far as you’d like. Only by adopting the newest techniques, and rolling with the constantly evolving internet and social media platforms, will you come out on top amongst all those vying for the same customer base.
So, let’s get started creating your social media presence. Before you start creating profiles, you need to do a little preparation first.
Do you want to continue reading the complete social media marketing guide?
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING COURSE