Using The Wonderful World Of Social Media

Like it or not, if you sell on line, you need to be involve the wonderful world of social media. As with search marketing, there is both an “organic” and an advertising component to marketing on social networks, news and media sharing sites.

As social media usage increases month over month, marketers have found a way to use these popular sites as channels for promotion. Companies have been using MySpace for years to create custom pages for their promotion and making friends with current and potential customers in and around their target demographic.

Now that a savvy online marketer can build a profile, network and strategically contact said, it is time to bring in the advertising. Here are 5 things to know about social media advertising.

Understand your targeted social media channel –

By knowing who is using which social media site, you can promote your products to their targeted audience on the appropriate social site. Just as a point of interest, Facebook users represent an older, more mature crowd than MySpace users, so if you were advertising rap music it might not be the most appropriate content on Facebook.

Target the correct users with your message –

I some times think you need to have a degree in psychology when it comes to advertising particularly since when using social media’s you are really trying to get into the heads of those who will be viewing you material. How you phrase your ad is often more important than what is actually said. Who are you targeting? Young affluent customers, middle age blue collar workers, senior citizens, ect.. You get the idea. When my children were young and I just teaching them how to fish, I would tell them that if you want to catch fish you use the bait that the fish are striking on.

Ensure the advertisements are supplementing the present content on the social site –

If your social media location is primarily made up of young singles and most of the conversations taking place are about dating and such things, it doesn’t make much sense to be placing advertising there for children’s clothing.

Have a social networking presence –

Integrating social media advertisements with social media usage is just plain smart: two impressions are better than one. And because searchers seeing either a brand name or a company name, PPC ads are likely to then click on the organic results for the same company, social media users could see the advertisements and search for the same company as a user on Facebook, Flickr or del.icio.us.

Another interesting thing is tha seeing a company successfully networking with the opinionated and persnickety social media community can really boost their reputation as being a caring company that is just “one of the guys.” Many people respect companies that are more down to earth and that interact with their customer base.

The time to get on board the social media train is now –

Just like with social media networking, the early bird gets the worm. Being one of the first to successfully use social media as an advertising vehicle shows innovation and understanding who will respond best to the advertisement’s messaging.

Incorporating social media advertisements with social media networking practices can give more impressions to the companies’ targeted users as well as a channel for users to connect with the company they trust.

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