The Benefits of Social Media Marketing

January 1, 2013 By

Most people live through social media nowadays. It’s likely that a person spends more time using social media than talking to actual people, given the wide range of possibilities made available by social media. It’s easy to connect with hundreds of people with just a few clicks, and less of the emotional baggage that comes with dealing with people in real life. Because of the increasing prevalence of social media, businesses should not hesitate to use social media to promote themselves. They should do this tastefully, but they shouldn’t hesitate to venture into the virtual personal space of their customers. Internet space is never completely private, after all.

News spreads much faster through social media than through other online means, especially since the company doesn’t necessarily need to promote itself once it gets the ball rolling. If the company offers good products and manages to get the favorable ratings of just a few customers, these customers will communicate their positive experiences to their friends. Then, others will also feel compelled to try the products. This is especially true with promotions that encourage publicity at a low cost, like sweepstakes or drawings. While a new business will not be able to get much done on Facebook alone, and a diversity of techniques should be best for advertising, Facebook is a powerful free tool.

Similarly, new offers and ways of connecting with customers can be found through Twitter. Even if fewer people use Twitter than Facebook, Twitter is a great way to send an instant message to the world. While Facebook relies on the promotions of those who have already seen the site and are telling their friends, Twitter relies on using clever messages to make a business appealing. A dull, poorly written Twitter will certainly not do as well as a lively one, and most people will not be able to tell the difference between a business Twitter and a personal Twitter as long as the tweets provide entertainment and have informative value. Twitter is also better for instant updates, as the interface is built to be most useful for one-sided communication. Exchanges between Twitter users are possible, but they are more cumbersome than exchanges in other places.

Social media gives businesses a way to use unconventional means to reach out to customers. Many customers find that trying to contact customer service in the usual way is ineffective or too slow, so they will take their complaints to social media sites. Here, these grievances might fester and linger on unanswered. Or, the business that is responsible for the grievances can step up and address the issues before disgruntled customers give the business a bad name. With or without the presence of the business in question, the reputation of the business will be discussed and built on conversations that occur through social media sites. It is highly beneficial, then, for the business to become part of the discussion. The business can protect its public image and offer an alternative point of view, as well as providing support for their products.

For bloggers or small business owners, they can easily integrate social media share buttons into their blogs or websites, which will enable them and their visitors share their content across such networks. The majority of free blogging sites now include this feature in their free services. For some blogging websites great features like these are restricted to paid subscribers, while others offer such features free of charge. A blogging website like 12Blog.Org offers this feature free of charge to its subscribers and also gives bloggers the medium to post their articles from their blogging dashboard directly to EzineArticles. Furthermore, 12Blog.Org offers his subscribers the great feature of letting their blog visitors comment on blog posts using social accounts like Facebook, Google plus and Twitter. This is a great feature that enables the visitor comment on the post and also post his comment to his social profile using a single button. 12Blog.Org also gives bloggers the feature to restrict some area of their blog post or articles to only visitors that will “like” the post or article using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google plus accounts.

If you have not been using social media for your promotions, you are missing a lot. I urge you to try using it and see the outcome. Click here to create a free blog and enjoy these features

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