Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing refers to techniques that target social networks and applications to spread brand awareness or promote particular products.

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service.[1] Most of these social media platforms have their own built-in data analytics tools, which enable companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public.

Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions.

Using social media for marketing can enable small business looking to further their reach to more customers. Your customers are interacting with brands through social media, therefore, having a strong social media marketing plan and presence on the web is the key to tap into their interest. If implemented correctly, marketing with social media can bring remarkable success to your business.

Social media marketing is a form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool. The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach.

Social media websites allow marketers to employ a broad range of tactics and strategies to promote content. Many social networks allow users to provide detailed geographical, demographic, and personal information, which allows marketers to tailor their message to what is most likely to resonate with the user. Because Internet audiences can be better segmented than more traditional marketing channels, companies can ensure that they are focusing their resources on the audience that they want to target.

SMM helps a company get direct feedback from customers (and potential customers) while making the company seem more personable. The interactive parts of social media give customers the opportunity to ask questions or voice complaints and feel they are being heard. This aspect of SMM is called social customer relationship management (social CRM).

SMM became more common with the increased popularity of websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and YouTube.