Welcome to Social Media Marketing!

What IS social media marketing? Why should I care?

Let’s start with the compelling WHY first with some simple ground rules and then get into the WHAT.

Simple Ground Rules about Social Media Marketing – WHY should I care?

1.      Recognize that everyone uses the internet and not the yellow pages. The web has so much information and all you have to do is type in your question to Google, Bing, or even Yahoo and BAM! Information galore.

2.      People are searching for your services or product information online, so what are you waiting for? --- If you don’t claim your piece of the internet with Google you will only grow your business so far.

3.      Social media marketing is virtually FREE, so why not leverage the most popular venue you’re your advertising???

Social Media…

First, let us look at what social media is all about. Social media are works created by you or others through video, audio, text, or any combination or multimedia, which is published and shared in a social environment though a blog or hosting site. It really is an umbrella term that defines many activities that integrate information, technology, and social interaction.

Information + technology + social interaction = Social Media

Social Media Marketing…

Now that we understand what social media is; now let us add to it the marketing function. Using the technological advances of the internet people are building social and business connections to share information. The hook here for marketing is to “create content that attracts attention and encourage readers to share it with their social networks.” This in return markets and advertises your brand and services through an exponential amount of publicity. That is what people refer to going viral for example on You Tube. The goal is to generate interest and excitement in a product or service through multiple online social outlets like blogs, social networks, and RSS feeds thus creating sales.

Information + technology + social interaction + marketing = Social Media = $$$

·        What are some of the popular social media networks?

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace.

·        What are some of the popular social bookmarking sites?

Digg, Stumble, Delicious

·        What are the social media sharing sites?

Flickr, YouTube, Viemo, RSS feeds

·        What about review/rating sites?

Yelp, BizRate, FourSquare

Want to refer to a glossary of social media terms; check these out.

http://www2.capilanou.ca/help/login-page/active-cms/glossary.html here is a great website that has a glossary of social media terms. If this resource is too simple, here is another that goes into more tech-depth… http://www.formicmedia.com/sem-glossary.htm  or try this site http://www.oskoui-oskoui.com/glossary