Social Media Marketing

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It was dismissed and written off by old school advertising. It just wasn’t going to reach an audience, and who knew what that audience was? Social media marketing met a lot of naysayers just a few years ago. Those naysayers aren’t around anymore. Social media dominates the Internet and smart phone usage. Recently Facebook became Google’s most-visited site, a surprise to no one. The power of social media and the need for social media marketing can no longer be denied or ignored as was once in vogue.

Many advertising agencies worried that social media marketing would only reach twenty-somethings in college or fresh out of college. In the worst scenario, only teens and young graduates cared. Neither of these have a lot of money, right? Well that’s not exactly true. Young adults have more wealth than at any other time in history, and teens have access to their parent’s wealth in many instances. Additionally, social media touches all ages from teens to adults.

What social media marketing does especially well for teens and young adults ...
... is establish brand loyalty. At a time when these age groups are first getting exposed to money or purchasing power, reaching the audiences can establish brand loyalty. This is especially effective among teens and young women. These are age groups where brand loyalty is established in the easiest way. Just look at clothing sales and how these age groups stay with the same brands as they age.

Discussing social media marketing wouldn’t be complete without looking at the premiere avenues: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more recently, FourSquare. While FourSquare is new and its staying power is still up in the air, the other avenues should remain open for some time.

Facebook: This hardly needs a paragraph because no doubt most people already know about Facebook. From a social media marketing perspective, Facebook is the most robust opportunity to generate buzz and revenue. With customizable Facebook pages, applications and games and advertisements, Facebook has opened its door to marketing. Facebook is the core of social media marketing, a great way to establish brand loyalty, reach a target audience and reach new customers at the same time.

Twitter: Much simpler than Facebook, Twitter pages allow for marketers to deliver quick, short messages and links directing people to a website, a cause or an action. The message is streamed live to all of its followers and can generate buzz faster than most media. Twitter’s used for breaking news and therefore is an instant way to spread a constant message across its large network of users.

LinkedIn: This is the career professional’s social networking site. Companies use it to market to job applicants and reach clients. While the least robust of social media marketing opportunities, LinkedIn reaches the right audience of career professionals who often have disposable income.

If there’s any doubt about the importance of social media marketing, just look at the hundreds of millions of users on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. With more sites such as YouTube offering social media opportunities, this is a market not to be ignored. It’s also a market that is relatively easy to tap into with little labor at all. Still the marketing lessons that have always existed remain: know your message, and find your audience.