Social media marketing and social networking are the buzz words in the Internet marketing world right now. Everyone is talking about it and most companies are convinced that they need to get involved in it. Understanding where to start and how to best utilize social media as a business tool can be overwhelming.
Many marketers start by trying to figure out how to best make the social media technologies that are available fit into their marketing mix. This is an example of the classic “cart-before-the-horse” mistake. To be successful with social media, marketers must first take these three steps:
- Decide what they want to accomplish using social media.
- Identify who the target market is for each social media campaign.
- Determine how that target market engages in the social media sphere.
Deciding on the goals and objectives of the campaign is a critical first step. Social media is about engaging with customers and/or prospective customers. As such, it can be used to drive additional sales, provide customer service, create awareness, conduct market research, and promote new offers and products.
Once you have decided on a clear and measurable objective for each campaign, then it is time to identify who the target market is and how they participate online. Are they merely spectators that just read information online? Are they contributors that like to feed the conversation and add their own pieces of information? Or, are they creators who regularly publish their own content?
Only after you have figured out what your objectives are, who your target market is, and how they use social media does it make sense to figure out what technologies to use in your social media marketing campaigns.
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