The concept of social media marketing is the process of obtaining traffic on the Internet by focusing on social media sites to gain attention. The whole concept of social media is to have members share information and content that they want to talk about and others will become interested and share as well, and after a while the information will “go viral” which means that it will take on a life of its own.This kind of marketing is propelled by word-of-mouth and interest grows by the assumption that the information is reliable because a friend is proposing the idea or this other trusted source is all for this conversation, so it must be trustworthy information.
The access to social media websites is fairly easy for anyone to jump into if they are able to access the Internet. Organizations and businesses have caught on that all of this easy access can have huge marketing implications for ideas and products. The interaction of individuals happens at lightning speed, and is a relatively inexpensive way to get the message out, so to speak.
By allowing individuals to interact with one another, relationships are formed. This interaction between people feels real and personal, as they share their experiences and every day happenings. Individuals can “friend” or allow others into a more private interactive setting so as to not be overwhelmed by numbers and also to keep out spammers.
So individual followers are allowed to re-post an item or re-tweet it, and when that occurs and the message is repeated, then all of the other connections of the users are able to see the repeated message, and so on. Soon the message is being repeated to people that the initial re-poster never heard of and the message is reaching untold hundreds and thousands of people. This will bring traffic back to the original poster.
By utilizing social networking sites, companies can also interact with individual followers. This brings a feeling of loyalty among the followers and friends with potential customers. By choosing whom to follow and post to, products and concepts can begin to reach a very narrow audience.
Social networking sites also contain a huge amount of demographics telling what people are interested in, where they live, their ages, their incomes, and their education. It can show what type of person will be looking at a particular product and at what time and cost that they are willing to pay for it. Also to be able to plug into trends by knowing what people are talking about on a social media network site, is a great way to target a product to the market place and offer people what they want.
The new dynamic is that the people who are active on the social media websites are not just passive viewers of events. They are participants in shaping the future of any product as they give opinions and comments, as others read their thoughts and feelings about a particular subject. Businesses are just now catching on to this powerful method of
advertising because it is instant and it happens fast. And we have just seen the beginning. It will be interesting to experience the future.