Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the process of leveraging social media to distribute your content. Content can be things like blogs, videos, clips, memes, images, infographics and many other online mediums that promote your product or service.
Social media is a vast ocean of information and marketing data that can quickly attract millions of users. SMM can reach thousands of potential new customers with the right piece of content. Social Media Marketing is a simple concept when compared to SEO, however the difference between SEO and SMM isn’t as cut and dry.
The main difference between SEO and SMM is which one expands your visibility in search engines. SEO improves a site’s ranking and visibility in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. In order to rank at the top for your desired keywords, your web content has to be very well written and optimized for search engines.
Social media marketing leverages social media platforms, which are technically their own search engines. The key difference is that social media requires a lot more engagement and creative effort in order to capture and maintain a viewer’s interest. Social media provides a way for users to engage with your company and allows you to connect with potential customers on a deeper level. Social media helps you advertise your brand as it provides a platform where you can showcase current and upcoming events, promotions, deals and special offerings.
Social media platforms allow you to interact with your target audience and build brand awareness through content. SMM allows you to combine your SEO optimized content with social media marketing to enhance your results in key categories.
Entertain Them, Don’t Educate Them
Social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, StumbleUpon and Digg. These platforms provide a way for you to not only build relationships with your audience but to also promote your company to the masses by driving traffic to your website by sharing your creative content.
“People don’t want to be educated; they want to be entertained.”
Social media platforms provide an easy way for you to get in front of your potential customers and entertain your audience. When people are able to interact with your brand through content they are more likely to buy from you because they feel like you are a real person. This builds customer loyalty and engages your audience on a deeper level than you could on your own. Your content should be honest and up to date but at the same time you want to maintain a strong sense of human connection.
Creating an Impression
The main objective of any marketing strategy is to create a long term impact on the audience by engaging them. Social Media Marketing provides you with an easy way to do this. Since SMM is all about content you have, the advantage over your competitors is to not only create content that your audience wants to read but one that grabs their attention and makes them want to know more.
The average consumer wants to be distracted from their monotonous daily routines. They want to escape the corporate grind, commute and stress at home. Social Media, sadly as it is, is often their escape. They find value and virtue upon the millions of video clips and cartoons that they find online. Even better, they often share them with their friends. If your client is sharing cat videos, why would you not want to be the cat in that video?
People now have the shortest attention span; effective marketers will grab that attention and redirect it into something positive and productive.
There is a right way and a wrong way to execute every component in a digital marketing campaign. Leveraging organic traffic, paid traffic and various social media marketing strategies will give you a huge boost in search results and will make your business stand out above the rest.
By using social media marketing you can engage with your audience, boost your SEO results and attract valuable backlinks to your website. Content creation, sharing and engagement are all key aspects of any successful online marketing campaign. If you don’t use all of these tactics you will find yourself fighting against the world for attention.
