There are various reasons to engage in a social media strategy.
- Social Media Helps in Promoting New Content: Content crafted properly can be exposed to hundreds of new website visitors, from the casual surfer to the extreme enthusiast, in a very spontaneous fashion. Unlike paid advertising, which is forced upon web surfers, social media lets visitors view content that’s not necessarily associated with commercial intent. Content can reach thousands of new eyeballs quickly without interfering with traditional marketing, but social media does not interfere with other strategies, either.
- Social Media Helps in Boosting Traffic to the Website: Traffic comes to websites from sources other than search engines, and many of those sources include social media sites. Once community participation is established, people will be interested in what you have to share and will likely pass relevant your blog posts, videos, or articles onto their peers.
- Social Media Helps Build Strong Relationships: If you are genuinely paying attention to members of the communities that are part of your message (or not even associated at all), you can build strong relationships when you take the time to respond to concerns or feedback. Even communities that are not necessarily related to your company, brand, product, or service offering have members who may individually be interested in knowing more about you and what you have to offer. And since it is so easy to spread your message via word of mouth online, if you really leave a good impression on those who you interact with on a regular basis, it’s almost certain that they will recommend you to a peer who is seeking your service or product.
- Social Media is Free: It is a cheap alternative to traditional with high returns. Social media marketers still need to understand the rules of engagement, participate in communities on a regular basis, and capitalize on emerging trends. Such activity will prove to be highly cost-effective. Buying hundreds of links on untargeted sites, for example, may cost you thousands of dollars, but if social media done effectively, the return on investment can be substantially higher. Plus, social media has the added benefit of heightened awareness about product offerings.
- Return on Investment in Social Media Marketing: Social media simply does not have a fixed cost. Depending on the scope of the project, social media can vary from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars. When pricing out possible consulting engagements, there should be a fair mix of social sites and communication opportunities in the most ideal social media campaign. Further, social media results cannot be measured immediately. Like any sort of tactic, social media puts your product or service in front of a group of users who will be interested in sharing the offering with their peers, though the process of sharing is only as rapid as the individuals who want to pass on the content.
