Social Media Marketing

1. The New Kid On The Search Block

Social Media such as Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn are now extremely important in emarketing. They not only influence how people find a product or service but also their likelihood of purchasing it. Word of mouth has always been recognized as a very powerful marketing tool – possibly the most powerful of all. But in pre-internet times it would often just take too long for the message to carry sufficient distance and breadth to be an effective mass media tool. The advent of dynamic mass media channels like TV put the old-fashioned methods of corporate branding even more in the shade.
The worldwide web changed the rules again with reviews and feedback of companies, products and services shooting up all over the place. Of course not everyone takes that much notice of a review written by a stranger who might have a reason for slating a product – or just not be a very reliable source. But when the source of the review is a friend, colleague or acquaintance whom you do know and possibly value their opinion, the tool becomes much more potent and influential.

This can be a good development – especially for smaller businesses – because it levels the playing field in terms of size of marketing spend and resource. The way things are moving it won’t necessarily be the company with the biggest advertising budget that gets the biggest benefit but the one that is able to position and manage its public profile in the most favorable and positive way.

2. Quality Vs Quantity

Quality, customer satisfaction and service will become the touchstones for marketing effectiveness. Customer relationship management (CRM) is now a primary marketing focus. And we all know that big corporations are often not very responsive or efficient in these respects.

Facebook also allows you to customize your pages and interact with your audience with Tabs in a way that was not possible earlier. There are many social networks and more appearing all the time, so it becomes difficult for a small business to keep track of everything that is going on. (At the time of writing Facebook’s integration with Bing was a hot topic.)

And this is where we come in; we can help you both explore and exploit the power of social media to build your brand and take full advantage of the opportunities it affords to those who take it seriously and use it properly to engage their audience. We will share with you what we have learnt in terms of what works and what doesn’t – and not everything you do in social media will necessarily have the effect you want. Care and knowledge is required – and we have both in abundance; plus we are adding to our skills and store of information on a daily basis.

By Dr. Ataollah Etemadi