"The Net is a waste of time,

and that's exactly what's right about it."

William Gibson

Social media strategy - why it's so important

Today we would like to address the question of whether social media marketing  is just a fad or if it is actually a practical and efficient marketing tool for businesses and individuals. At eMarketSchool.com, we get a lot of requests from both amateurs and professional who are not sure how exactly they can harness the power of social media to their benefit.

In this report we will show you just how to leverage the power of social networking to your advantage. We will cover what people are using social media for, which social media strategies are working, and which aren't

The Benefits of a well-planned social media strategy

According to a survey conducted by MarketingSherpa (posted on eMarketer) ,large majorities of social media marketers consider social media to be effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness, and improving search rankings and site traffic.

A social media strategy for branding

One reason marketers and business professionals turn to social media (SM) such as My Space, Facebook and Twitter is to increase the awareness and reputation of their brand.

  

Marketing professionals understand the importance of planning and executing a good social media strategy in order to attract and create “brand ambassadors” – people who will carry their marketing message banner for them. This is also called “influencer marketing” and this kind of marketing uses the power of the customer to sell to other potential customers. It’s an overall shift towards using “pull” rather than “push” marketing (pushing is traditional advertisement, while pulling utilizes brand loyalty or passion amongst tconsumers to help propel their brand.)

The increased web traffic benefit

For companies who generate all or most of their sales from their website, the biggest incentive to join the social media community is to drive traffic to that site.

Social madia and customer interaction

Another good social media strategy that has proven worthwhile for businesses is customer service and relationship building. Through social media, current or prospective customers have the ability to review and discuss products or the organizations themselves through their company run social media sites or blogs, and provide valuable feedback to those companies in real time.

This polling or online focus group function of SM is cheap and fast compared to traditional methods of consumer research. There is also an incredible value to the relationships built through social media and the ability of a company to develop a rapport with consumers that has both brand building power as well as customer relations or customer service value.

Businesses are also employing different social marketing networking platforms to monitor public discussion of their brand, either by actively looking at the comments left on their own social media sites, or by tracking external sources such as blogs and other social media sites held by individuals, fans, or detractors of their organization.

The advantage that social networks hold over their traditional online presence is that social media sites allows businesses to respond personally to negative comments or discussions and defend their brand as well as their reputation quickly and easily.