Social Media Mgr has been established to target businesses who may not understand social media and its potential to actively connect brands with their customers by regular and interactive communication online.

Social Media is a relatively new term, now regularly used in marketing circles.
This form of marketing, often called Social Media Marketing, is part of the overall marketing strategy which will also involve your website, advertising, promotions, PR, pricing etc.
It is a Tool (a very current and increasingly popular tool) used to market your brand.

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So, what is SOCIAL MEDIA and what does it mean for BUSINESSES?
  • Social is talking, interacting with people
  • Social Media is doing this online with the use of technology
  • Social Media Marketing is having meaningful conversations and building relationships with your customer
  • Social Media Management is creating the platforms to do all the above and maximising it to its full potential, thus creating value

It also is:

  • Constantly Changing Communication, ie. up-to-the-minute
  • Two-way and Engaging
  • Supportive

Social Media is different to Traditional Media – advertisements and publicity push your company message out in the hope that someone will see it and take action.  There is certainly still a role for this, especially for brand awareness, however the trend has turned towards the very cost-effective Social Media strategies to complement the traditional marketing plan.

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What are the Social Media Platforms?

These are places online where you can promote yourself or your brand in a social way.  There are an huge amount of these networks on the web, that cater for all ages and demographics, and they will likely come and go and develop over time, but the key ingredient of all Social Media is PEOPLE.  Currently, these 5 are the MOST IMPORTANT ones, especially for business and whether you use each is dependent on the brand’s target market.  Regardless, they are all connected:

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1.  Blog – Business Blogging is the Hub of the Social Media Strategy and the home of the Content that you share with your audience.  This is where you drive people to earn their trust and credibility, resulting in loyal customers and revenue.  The most important thing about your Blog is that YOU OWN IT.

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2.  Facebook – a Facebook Business Page, which can act as its own mini-website and accumulate “Fans”.  Facebook is more casual and is great for conversation and sharing information on a regular basis.

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3.  LinkedIn – a professional networking site, the value of which is probably under-estimated.  It has huge potential for business-to-business and for driving traffic to your website.

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4.Twitter – used to broadcast out to “followers” short and frequent messages.  Fabulous for generating a following and driving traffic to your website – it is very content-driven.

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5. YouTube – video content site where you can host and share video clips.   It is a tool used in all of the above, but can also act as a network in itself.  Posting and sharing video is a great way to connect with your customers.

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I encourage you to watch the video presentation below.  It’s content is just amazing and I’m sure you will be enlightened on the way technology is changing the way we communicate.

Social Media is not a FAD, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate

To learn more about Benefits of Social Media Marketing, I invite you to read my blog post on this topic and leave you to consider the words of Erik Qualman, a leading commentator on social media and author of “Socialnomics”:

We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it”

Success at Social Media Marketing is dependent on many factors but the driving force is CONTENT.

“Content is King” – you can read more about this in my blog post.