What is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
According to Search Engine Land, Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media sites.
Social media itself is a catch-all term for sites that may provide radically different social actions. For instance, Twitter is a social site designed to let people share short messages or “updates” with others. Facebook, in contrast is a full-blown social networking site that allows for sharing updates, photos, joining events and a variety of other activities.
Why is Social Media Marketing important for Internet Marketing?
- Social media help your content spread more easily online. While SEO makes people who search online find your information, social media allows you to promote your content to social networks.
- Social media marketing helps your SEO efforts. Having your content shared in social media help your website rank higher in search engines.
Some Interesting Social Media Stats
- People now spend more time on social media than in their email inbox
- 78% of Internet users conduct product research online
- Companies who blog get 79% more followers on Twitter
Social Media Best Practices
1. Be Worth Paying Attention To
Followers, friends, subscribers - no matter what word you use, people following you on social media services are doing the same thing: paying attention to what you have to say. So how do you get more of them? Easy: say something worth paying attention to!
2. Social Media is Like a Cocktail Party
An increased reach on social media comes from regularly sharing out good, useful content on your social media profiles, be it Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or another platform. The content that you share doesn't have to come from you - and in fact, most of it shouldn't. If all you ever link to is your own content you're being the person at the cocktail party who goes on and on about themselves, alienating their fellow partygoers.
3. Be Educational, Not Promotional (Except for Every Now and Then)
Use HubSpot's social media tool to find and share blog entries, news articles, webpages, questions and answers, or conversations that are relevant to your industry. Social media is a lot like blogging; you want to be educational, not promotional. If your Twitter feed, for instance, is a collection of useful links, resources, and thoughts, then your follower count will grow - and the audience of people who might read and link to the occasional useful, relevant blog post of your own that you share will grow ever larger!
4. Social Media is Social
Finally, remember that social media is social. People are looking for information on social media because they want to get it from human, not from large corporations or from automated algorithms. As such, respond and interact just as if you would at a cocktail party or on the tradeshow floor - be polite, be friendly, offer up good information, and you'll succeed.