What Businesses Need to Know About Social Media Marketing

Steve Hamm

It’s common for businesses to approach social media marketing the wrong way. Since it’s a relatively new marketing platform, many companies are still adjusting to it. Here are three things you should know about social media marketing:

Social media marketing is not traditional marketing

This is probably the mistake we see businesses make the most often. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had success with traditional marketing; you still need to adapt your strategy for social media.

A recent Entrepreneur article explains the difference between traditional marketing and social media marketing. According to the article, businesses should prioritize building a community on social media:

“It’s been proven by experts that social media marketing can widen your reach, help you engage more audiences and create more fans. But social media isn’t like traditional advertising where you put a message out into the world and hope someone responds. It’s more conversational and centered around the idea of a community.”

Lead generation is the most important aspect of social media

Although social media marketing can increase your sales, it’s done in a roundabout way. The most important thing is that you generate leads on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. By attracting followers to your website, they’re more likely to place an order.

Follower engagement is just as important as lead generation

In terms of social media marketing, lead generation is to sales as follower engagement is to your brand identity. If your goal  is to increase your brand exposure on social media, then you should focus on follower engagement. You can do this by posting great content and engaging followers in discussion.

Businesses often find social media marketing much more effective when they learn to separate it from traditional marketing. Knowing these three things will help you adjust sooner, rather than later.

So it’s a good idea to expand your marketing efforts with the help of social media but you should also continue your traditional marketing efforts which will help you stay in touch with your customers.  For social media marketing to be successful, it needs to work in an interactive manner, inviting comments from customers.

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