Why Does Social Meda Marketing (SMM) Matter?
Social media has become the modern day search engine. Facebook has recently surpassed Google in terms of web traffic. In the past year, we have seen social media badges for facebook, twitter and more pop up on every major site out there. There is good reason for that.
By 2010, Gen Y outnumbered the baby boomers – that’s 50% of the population under 30
96% of them are on a social network!
In order to get 50 Million Users, it took the Radio 38 years, TV 13 years, Internet 4 years, Ipod 3 years.
Facebook added over 100 Million Users in less than 9 months!
Barack Obama obtained 5 million fans on social media and took over the world. Companies like Levi’s, Burger King, Lenovo, Dell gained massive sales due to social media. As seen in the graph below, many large websites drove in more referring traffic from social networks than from Google.
Google has even built social media such as twitter feeds and youtube videos along with news right into their real time search results.
So how do I start taking advantage of social media?
The success of your social media marketing strategy will heavily rely on two key factors:
- How easily accessible/shareable you make your content (the more ways you give your audience to share your content the better)
- The quality of your content and how interesting it is (can it go viral?)
Social networks have changed the way consumers use the Internet. People are now relying on their trusted networks of friends when deciding what to read, watch, interact and buy online.
Driving in referred traffic from social networks is vital to the success of any online marketing strategy and should be closely tied with with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plan and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) strategy. SMM, SEO and SEM combined are now a critical area of marketing analysis and investment for any business operating on the web today. As mentioned above, companies that socially optimize their sites – making it easy for site users to share content and experiences – are quickly surpassing their rivals in traffic growth, traffic quality, and time spent on their sites.
Find out what people are saying about you?
Monitor what people are saying about your brand online and be the first to respond to their comments by using specialized web tools. It’s important to be engaged with your audience and make sure that what is being spread around the internet about you is actually true. Monitoring what people say about you or your company is a great pre-emptive approach to reputation management.
Watch this social clip below for more fun filled social marketing and optimization facts.
