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How Can Social Media Help Your Business Succeed?

The traditional marketing model was to get as many people to see your product or service’s message as possible and hope that a percentage of them would buy. Traditional advertising methods include the yellow pages, radio advertising, direct mail, television commercials, magazine ads, and so on.

These traditional marketing methods are no longer effective because many consumers have become numb to ‘one way’ messaging. People no longer trust advertisers because the message has been overdone. According to a recent survey, only 14% of people trust advertisements, while 76% trust consumer recommendations. As a result, more marketers began looking for new ways to link up with prospective consumers.

Initially, Internet marketing was popularized by using Websites and optimizing those sites using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques. The days of broadcasting a message about your product or service to the masses and hoping for a response are over. People do not want to do business with companies that do not have a name or a face. Consumers are interested not only in the’man behind the curtain,’ but also in what others are saying about your product or service.

According to a recent study, 80 percent of Internet-using moms in the United States were affected by utterance from friends and relatives when making purchase decisions. Like no other media platform, social media marketing enables smaller companies to benefit from consumer word-of-mouth advertising.

Benefits Of Social Media Marketing

• Increased New Customer Acquisitions – The main benefit of social media marketing is that you will be able to connect with connections of prospective consumers that you would not be able to reach using other traditional marketing techniques or even SEO.

• Word of Mouth Marketing– Word-of-mouth marketing has always been the most effective method of generating sales. You can create raving fans through social media marketing who will knowingly and willingly advertise your product and services to their networks of friends. Of sure, if your service or product is subpar, you may reap the negative consequences.

• Brand Awareness – Branding your company through digital marketing is much easier, quicker, and less expensive than traditional advertising or even website marketing.

 

Why Aren’t More Businesses Utilizing Social Media Marketing?

To be honest, most businesses have no idea how to develop or implement this type of strategy. What options do small business owners have when it comes to developing and implementing a social media marketing strategy:

Outsourcing is a better option than hiring an employee because you will not have to hire, train, manage, and pay an employee to perform these functions. However, these advantages come at a cost. These services can be very expensive to outsource. I’ve heard of social media companies charging more than $1,000 to create a Facebook Fan Page. Setting up this task should take no more than 20 minutes. Once again, the issue is one of education. If you don’t understand how social media marketing works, don’t hire or outsource the tasks unless you’re willing to pay a premium.