The Importance of Starting a Social Marketing Campaign
by Danny Brown on March 31st, 2008
In order to bring in new customers, many businesses use expensive advertising methods. From newspaper adverts to trade magazines, radio or television commercials or more, the cost to get your business name out in the open can often be an expensive undertaking. However, there is another method that you can use, and it’s both inexpensive and hugely effective – social marketing.
What is Social Marketing?
At its simplest, social marketing is a method of online marketing that can bring very substantial results for businesses that use it. By working to a set plan over certain timescales, you can use things like blogs, social networking sites, online forums and much more to drive new traffic to your company website. And new traffic very often means new customers.
There are literally hundreds of ways that you can use a social marketing campaign to get results; however, if you’re new to the idea then there are certain ones that are easier than others to implement from the beginning.
Make a Timetable
Just like any part of your business’ marketing plans, social marketing needs to be approached properly and with a solid plan of attack. Making time in your day-to-day workings will ensure that you can concentrate all your energies onto getting the right ideas across.
Use Social Media Sites
Over the last few years, traditional methods for reporting the news have gradually been replaced by social media sites. These websites have millions of users who share news stories as soon as soon as they break, often beating established news sites to the punch. Places like Digg, StumbleUpon and Technorati are excellent for users to recommend stories and other websites. If you set up a profile, you can then have friends and colleagues start to recommend your news to other users, which in turn will lead to an increased interest in your business.
Start a Blog
Often looked upon as the musings of lonely people with nothing better to do, blogs done properly can be as effective a marketing tool as you could possibly think. Not only can blogs offer a great opportunity to have the very latest news from your business made available, they can also allow you to show your strengths as an expert in the areas that you’re talking about. Once people start reading your blog and agreeing with what you’re writing, they’ll most probably look at the business that the blog is associated with.
You can start a blog fairly easily – either as a sub-domain on your existing website, or as a separate entity that links back to your site. This second option is an excellent way of growing links to your website as well, which is another important aspect of social marketing. By combining all these aspects, you’ll soon have a far improved presence online, and one that the likes of Google will soon pick up on.
