What is Social Media Marketing?

That's a question we hear a lot, and it can be answered by a quick explanation of what Social Media are and how they work. As the phrase suggests, Social Media is people+communication, and it all connects to the good old concept of word of mouth, aka the most powerful marketing tool ever discovered.

Social Media is defined as websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. So, networking: connecting with people, talking with people, sharing information with people, making new friends, finding old friends, keep in touch with the community and join clubs and groups of people that share your same passions and interests. If you're thinking that this is "something you've been doing your whole life", you are right - but now, because you want your small business to be successful, it's time to take it to the next level.

Imagine serving dinner to a group of ten friends. Someone may ask you where you found such a great chicken, and you would answer with the name of the poultry or the shop where you bought it, and maybe share a bit of information on the product. Out of the ten people eating, five will remember what you said about the chicken, and one or two maybe go out specifically to buy that same brand of meat.

Now, imagine serving dinner to the same group of friends. When that beautiful chicken comes out of the oven - just before serving it - you take a picture with your mobile phone, you post it on Facebook and tag the poultry, then share it on Instagram with the hashtag #yummyfood. Because your Facebook account is synced with your Twitter account, thousands of people could see your photo and the information on the poultry seconds after you post it! Then, you also go and talk to your friends about it.

Last imagination exercise: imagine being the poultry. Which scenario works best for you?

Being on social media is important because your customers, who love your products, want to tell all of their friends about you by simply being able to tag you, link to you, like your Facebook page, follow your Twitter activities and interact with you in order to create a relationship: later we'll talk about how this happens. For now, think about the importance of reading your customers comments, the conversations people may have on your page, the possibility to reply in real time to questions and requests.

Social media let people find you, refer to you, and interact with you: social media marketing is about making it easy for people to find you, motivate them to refer to you and encourage interaction. Oh, there is something else about social media marketing that should be taken into account: it's free.

A good recap of how social media marketing works is provided in this short video by Quickstarter:


Social Media 101, from Social Media Quickstarter from Social Media Quickstarter on Vimeo.

To summarise, a well planned Social Media Marketing campaign will bring major benefits to small businesses:

1. Reduces your overall marketing costs
Social media marketing can be free with excellent results. In case you decide to run an ad, a $5 budget is enough to reach thousands of interested people in your area.

2. Drives more traffic to your website
Some social media platforms are great tools to divert internet traffic to your website. That is, they guide people towards you, just like street signs. Think about blogs and videos.

3. Allows you to offer outstanding customer service
On social media you can respond to a request after seconds, you can observe your customers and figure out their needs.

4. Allows you to convey complex messages
Do you feel like a one-line slogan isn't enough to communicate the complexity of your work? Start a blog! Write a landing page! Talk to people about your products, your business philosophy, your views...

5. Is an excellent networking and competition analysis tool
On social media you make friends, discuss topics you're interested in, comment and read other people's comments

6. Lets you educate the consumers
Most Australians are desperate to find good products, but they don't know the difference. Tell them why your chocolate is spacial, why your carrots are healthier and how your scarves are made! Share the hard work, post pictures, reveal a few "secrets", invite them to come and see...

7. All of the above generate real competitive advantage
By talking to customers, linking with business partners, building a solid reputation and sharing your values you have a great chance to boost your immediate sales and, most importantly, build a solid long-term producer-consumer bond.

Still not sure whether you should be on social media or not? ;-)

Next time we'll go through each platform to help you understand which is the best one for you - probably you'll need more than one but I will also show you how to manage multiple platforms at the same time, yay!