Social media marketing

Social media marketing is a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, Wikipedia, Orkut and YouTube.

In the context of Internet marketing, social media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is primarily published by users, not direct employees of the property (e.g., the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by non-YouTube employees).

Concept

Social media marketing has three important aspects:

1. Creating buzz or newsworthy events, videos, tweets, or blog entries that attract attention, and become viral in nature. Buzz is what makes social media marketing work. It replicates a message through user to user contact, rather than the traditional method of purchasing of an ad or promoting a press release. The message does not necessarily have to be about the product. Many successful viral campaigns have gathered steam through an amusing or compelling message, with the company logo or tagline included incidentally.
2. Building ways that enable fans of a brand or company to promote a message themselves in multiple online social media venues. Fan pages in Twitter, MySpace of Facebook follow this model.
3. It is based around online conversations. Social media marketing is not controlled by the organization. Instead it encourages user participation and dialogue. A badly designed social media marketing campaign can potentially backfire on the organization that created it. To be successful SMM campaigns must fully engage and respect the users.

According to Lloyd Salmons, first chairman of the Internet Advertising Bureau social media council "Social media isn't just about big networks like Facebook and MySpace, it's about brands having conversations.".

Best practices for social media marketing are arguably elusive today and its merits relative to traditional marketing are debated. However a growing consensus suggests social media marketing and Social Media are here to stay. Nielsen published a report indicating that blogs and social networks are key components of the emerging social web. The social web, comprising social media websites and applications is the milieu within which social media marketing takes place.

Social network marketing

Social network marketing or social level marketing, is an advertising method that makes use of social network service and to increase their web presence. This ranges from simply advertising directly on social networking sites, viral marketing that spreads throughout the web, email, and word of mouth, or providing niche social networking sites focused around the item being advertised.

Many sites include features where companies can create profiles. For example, on Facebook companies can create "pages" where users can become fans of this company, product, service, individual, etc. Many companies create MySpace pages for themselves.

Companies sometimes invest in internet presence management, which can include social network marketing.

Studies

According to a 2009 CMO Survey, currently 3.5% of marketing budgets is spent on social media marketing, with that figure predicted to grow to 6.1% within 12 months and 13.7% within five years. The survey also found that social networks (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn) are most favored by marketers, followed by video sharing sites (e.g., YouTube), image sharing sites (e.g., Flickr), blogs, and microblogs (e.g., Twitter and Seesmic). According to the 2009 Digital Readiness Report, "Essential Online Public Relations and Marketing Skills," a majority of organizations are now contemplating hiring social media specialists. In a 2007 study by eMarketer, commissioned by MySpace, it was predicted there would be a $1230 million spend on social network marketing. In a 2008 study by Forrester Research evaluating the social network marketing programs, only one of the 16 major firms it had reviewed had received a passing grade, with half of the programs scoring a zero or lower.

Social Media Marketing in China

Social Media Marketing is particularly effective in China, where a perceived lack of business ethics have resulted in a consumer tendency to mistrust traditional advertising and depend more on word-of-mouth marketing.

Social Media Marketing and Businesses

Social Media has started to become a viable marketing venue for businesses. They have especially become popular for media outlets to use. CNN has a podcast and a facebook. In addition to CNN, as a company using social media, their employees use different social media. For example Anderson Cooper, of Anderson Cooper 360 has a blog, a facebook and a twitter. Facebook seems to be the leading social media outlet for businesses by having pages from different companies such as Dots, New York and Company. Twitter comes in 2nd place and Myspace comes in 3rd place.

“A customer oriented mindset stemming from deep social interaction allows a company to identify and meet customer needs in the marketplace, generating superior profits." - Wetpaint and Altimeter, The Engagement Report

Social Media Potential for Business to Business

Business technology buyers participate socially more than adult US consumers. Forrester surveyed technical and line-of-business decision-makers who buy technology. Socially, this is an extremely active group compared to US adults or many other groups. Almost all (91%) read blogs, view videos, or listen to podcasts online, and just 5% don’t participate in any social activity at least monthly. More than three fourths of respondents say that peers influence their purchase decisions, more so than any other media or information source.

See also

• Cluetrain Manifesto

External links

• "Marketers go 2-way with social networking". Chicago Tribune. February 3, 2009.