February 21, 2014

10 Reasons To Use Social Media Marketing In Your Business

No doubt you have heard all the buzz about social media

marketing, but do you really know what it is and why you

should be using it in your business?

image by bd solis

Whether you realize it or not, real-time conversations that define

your market and brand are happening every day on social media

sites – this is happening whether you choose to participate or not.

I, for one, am going to participate. There are many reasons why you

should be using social media marketing for your business and I

have chosen to list 10 that I think are some of the most compelling

reasons.

1. Ability to network with potential clients and customers from all over the world – With social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Twitter, along with many, many others, you can hold one-on-one conversations with each of your customers. Introduce them to new products, opportunities, up coming sales and offer suggestions and tips.

2. Establish yourself as an expert – Use forums and message boards to answer questions professionally, honestly, and correctly, which will allow others to get to know you and respect as an expert in your niche. They will start looking to you for answers.

3. Get great traffic with social media. Not only great traffic…. but an awesome amount of traffic. You never know, maybe one of your article becomes viral and makes it to the front page of Yahoo Buzz (a social news site), it could get you 100,000 to 1,000,000 viewers. Becoming popular are sites like Instagram with about 100,000,000 monthly visitors and from Tumblr with around 125,000,000 monthly visitors. Meetup is also a great site with 35,000,000 monthly visitors and this is a great place to meet people in you area.

4. Increase your link-ability – One way to move up in the search engines is to have links from other sites pointed to your site. Natural links – or links that come naturally to your great post, awesome video, or amazing picture, are the best kind for your business. They’ll not only bring in traffic, but should also help move you up further in the search engines.

5. Search Engines Optimization (SEO) – Social media marketing allows you to move up in the search engines because of links. Many social news sites and social networking sites have “do follow” links in their profile pages. Every time you create a profile with your blog, they will be sending link juice to you – in other words, it’s telling Google your blog is worthy of a mention. Link juice from a quality site = higher ranking in the search engines.

6. Branding – Creates a recognizable identity for your product, opportunity or service. This is extremely valuable for all businesses. Incorporating this with creating a buzz allows you to get the word out about your business in a way that promotes online conversation.

7. Build Relationships – Use a variety of social media, and you’ll build relationships with customers and potential customers. These customers will come to know, like, and trust you which has been developed through honesty and sincerity.

8. Cheaper Than Traditional Marketing and Advertising – Social media marketing shouldn’t cost a business nearly as much as traditional advertising. And, if you do it yourself, it might not cost a dime. However, it will cost you time. Depending how much your time is worth, it might be worthwhile to hire someone to help with the social media marketing. There are sites like fiverr where many professionals will do your posts, make banners, and various jobs like that for $5. So, it really depends on how much your time is worth. Overall, social media marketing is just a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing and advertising.

9. Direct Conversation To a Specific Niche – There are so many social networking, social bookmarking, and social news sites that are dedicated to specific niches. You have the ability to speak directly to these people and not have all the other noise of unrelated topics getting in the way. If you are speaking their language, you have a better chance of them actually hearing what you are saying – and you’re getting the RIGHT KIND of following.

10. Know exactly what your customers want – Social media is amazing in so many ways. It also takes away the wondering or guessing what your customers want. You want to know what they want? Ask them on social media, and they’ll tell you. They can play an active role in the business – Instead of focus groups, let your customers play an active role in your business. Allow them offer suggestions, let them share their likes and dislikes – all on social media. You might find yourself ideas for new products and services you’d never have without them.

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