I vaguely recall when a friend sent me an email a few years ago, inviting me to become listed on this new website, called Facebook. Apparently this great site was all about finding contacts and acquaintances that you might have lost contact with over the years. He also mentioned something about having the ability to upload photos, post info on what you are doing etc. I must confess that I was not very interested in this new way to waste time and ignored his request for a few weeks. Eventually he gave up hope and registered an account on my behalf. He forwarded me my account information and the rest, as they say, is history.
It’s difficult to imagine that Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other varieties of social networking were only introduced a few years ago. Today social marketing is among the most beneficial and most widely used forms of internet marketing.
Surprisingly, the most active group on social websites is not the young generation (kids, teens etc). The most active age group at present is in fact people between 30 and 39 years – young professionals who are up to date with the happenings in the world and keen to share information and facts and discover more.
In case you are wondering if social marketing will work for your small business, you need to ask yourself a couple of questions. Let’s use Facebook as an example for illustration purposes for the remainder of this article:
To begin with, you need to ask yourself what your audience is. As stated in an earlier paragraph, the most active group on Facebook is the 30-39 years age group, followed by the 20 – 29 years group. If this is mostly the type of clients you want to target, then Facebook can be applied to your benefit.
Won’t it require me to pay an arm and a leg every month? The spectacular thing about several forms of social marketing, including Facebook, is that there is a lot that you can do to market your organization without having to pay a cent! On Facebook you can build a page or group for your business and invite friends to join your group. They will in turn refer the group or page to their friends, families and colleagues and soon your online area will start to grow.
What must I do on my social marketing pages? This is a extremely important question! Social networking is all about the consumer (the social media user in other words). It is a website where users can share information and facts and have discussions, it is NOT a channel where they want to be bombarded with unnecessary info, spam and verbal fights. For that reason it is very important that your posts are interesting and add value to the life of your fans or followers.
By keeping the above mentioned details in mind you should have a good idea if social marketing will work for your company, products or services.