The concept of social media marketing is one that’s missed by a lot of people. Some people assume it means trying to sell products online by sending out a lot of spam email. Some people believe it’s related to those late night TV gurus who tell you that they’ll have you making millions of dollars within weeks if you learn their system.
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There are a few differences between social media marketing and internet marketing, which is what a lot of people might be thinking of.
With a lot of internet marketing, there is little attempt to actually make a connection with someone. The idea is to push products, whether they’re products created by the marketer or not. Their push is to try to get big email lists of addresses and pound the masses to earn their 1 – 3% of sales and live off that. Some internet marketers do really well with that concept, while others fail because they were too late into the marketplace to truly be effective.
Social media marketing is much different. Its purpose is to establish a long term relationship with an audience in some fashion and hope to drive those people to them. If you have a traditional business location, social media marketing can help get people to come through the doors if done properly.
It can help you reach an audience who might have never heard of you. It can give you the opportunity to show some expertise in your field that people might relate to and thus help you build sales. At the same time, since it’s mainly done over the internet, and can be much more comprehensive, being known as an expert by more people works better.
How can it do a lot of these things? What kind of purpose can it serve? I’m going to say more, but first I’m going to share some links where I talk about social media marketing in some detail. Here are 5 links to articles on social media marketing in general terms that might help you understand what it’s all about.
Here’s what I see more of unfortunately. Though things might seem slightly better than they were in 2009 when studies showed that Twitter was mainly blather, spam, aka advertising, seems to have caught up, or possibly is just slightly under. It depends on what category you want to put advertising one’s own content, blog or otherwise in. Much of the automation that’s out there is to get the word out for an individual or specific company.
Just last week someone who’s known as a big time player on Google Plus actually posted the same link 6 or 7 times an hour between 6 and 9 in the morning (unfortunately I was up; ugh…). He did share a couple of things from others but in my timeline he was kind of irritating. To me, that’s spam to the nth degree.
On the other side, there are people who retweet others all day and never share anything they do; is that less irritating? In the last month I’ve dropped people I was following who only do that, or only post pictures or only post quotes. Is that engagement? Is that social media marketing?
I’m certainly not going to say I’m perfect at it but I think I’m pretty good. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve started sharing a lot more of my present and past posts from this blog and my business blog, as well as some quotes I’ve made in blog posts over the years from my business blog that I think might be motivational. I’m also sharing some of my video links. But I share as much content from others, moreso than my own stuff, and I add a comment to at least half of that, which sometimes leads into conversation.
To me, that’s what social media marketing should be about, adding in the concept of social media engagement. If you’re not giving yourself a chance to talk to your audience then why not just stick to email campaigns? Do you really think anyone is reading your posts on Twitter or Google Plus or Facebook if they know that you’re never reading any of their stuff, or that you’ll never respond to a comment they make back to you in those spaces?
Of course, this is my opinion. I ask you now, do you agree with any of what I’ve said, do you have your own thought on it? Let me know; I’d love to hear it.
Damien, the best way to monitor Twitter and see the stuff you actually want to see is to create Twitter lists. You can create lots of lists to break people up into or just a couple of lists. That way you get to see the people you really want to see and only visit the others when you’ve finished seeing what you want and feel like engaging others. I actually only have two lists, one that I call “local folks” and the other “friends I want to follow”. Both lists have fewer than 30 people and I know some of those folks aren’t going to post every day or all day. Still, I always start with those lists and if I don’t have lots of time that’s enough. Usually late at night is when I look at the rest. Being choosy like that eliminates all the folks you see who are irking you. lol
I also use the Tweetdeck standalone instead of going through Twitter itself, which makes tracking easy. I know there are other platforms people see but on my computer that’s the one I use. On my phone & Nook I use Tweetcaster Pro.
I hope that helps some.
I do share a lot of my stuff on social media but they’re usually days apart. It doesn’t matter if it’s Facebook or Google+ I only share the link once and that’s it. I certainly don’t spam social media sites.
I’m going to be sharing a lot less stuff on Facebook because the wife doesn’t appreciate my hot sports babe posts. I told her it was all part of my marketing but she won’t have a bar of it. Oh well, that’s that. It ain’t worth the headache at home.
Peter, I was wondering when that was going to happen, knowing your wife. lol Anyway, I share more often than you many times, but not as often as I probably should. Thing is, we have to be willing to do what’s necessary if we’re marketing without going overboard and being irritating. There’s nothing wrong with that, since in some fashion we’re both hoping that our online participation will help us make some kind of money in the long run.
The only thinkg that I have to market is myself and I am well past my use by date. So. apart from just linking my blog posts to fb I don’t indulge in any social media marketing, but theoretically, I am in agreement with you.
Actually Rummuser, you know that’s not close to being true. After all, how old was Grandma Moses when she decided to become an artist? 🙂 Past your use date; not even close. How many people do you think you could inspire to great things right now & into the future? 🙂
Yeah, women just don’t understand marketing 😉
Those posts have brought a lot of traffic and I’m getting a lot of clicks. Conversions are another story but that’s normal.
Social Media is what on which every blogger should focus to increase their overall traffic and SEO. Its playing very hard role in blogger life.