Found a great PDF presentation document titled “Introduction to Social Media” by Gino Cosme where he gives an introduction regarding Social Media for your business, organisation or agency.
In the presentation, he also explains how Social media marketing (SMM) is different to traditional marketing in so many ways. Find an excerpt below on the presentation.
Thanks to information overload many consumers are sceptical about listening to traditional marketing messages. No longer is traditional advertising the best strategy for attracting a new business prospect. However, recommendations are taking place in the marketplace and hype is being cultivated by communities that can and does have a positive effect on their purchase decisions.
Social media introduces a unique aspect to your company’s marketing strategy. Where once companies dictated what was said about their brands to a passive audience, consumers are now becoming the creators and distributors of these messages.
Aside from increasing your brand’s touch points, social media marketing provides your company with an opportunity to build valuable relationships with these consumers and improve brand loyalty amongst them (and their communities) by engaging in meaningful dialogue. By integrating social media into your marketing and communications strategy, you can facilitate reaching your consumers in both their off- and online environments, which equates to targeted (and measurable) branding.
Social media also helps you build a community centred on your brand, in turn providing you with another targeted mechanic to communicate to and extract valuable information from. As a form of market research, social media participation lets you monitor conversations about your brand and interest trends within social media communities. Monitoring social media sites is an important part of brand management. This is because it helps you understand how supporters of your brand are talking about your business.
As a result of social media being primarily controlled by its users, a huge mind shift is required. Unlike traditional media, social media should not be entirely controlled by a company with a narrow agenda or by hard selling techniques. Any company trying to control it will fail miserably. This means that being an active participant is key.
It must be said that social media is not about to take over traditional media, at least not in the immediate future. However, identifying new media activities that complement your traditional marketing activities in an integrated manner, in turn targeting your audience in both their off- and online environments, is definitely a step towards building valuable relationships.
Imagine a campaign that starts off using traditional media and extends online where true conversations and measurement can take place – that’s what I’m talking about!
You can download the document here: Introduction to Social Media or you can browse to Gino Cosme‘s blog for more information.
Browse to our website if you require more information regarding our social media marketing services.