The development of new online destinations for information sharing and interactive communication by and between family and friends as well as professional associates is consistently cited as the driving force behind Web 2.0. Termed “Social Media”, the trend has created abundant opportunities to distribute high quality health and disease education content, while creating community and entirely new opportunities for collaboration between your business and its customers.
One of the web’s most recognized information sources, Wikipedia, defines “Social media marketing” as a term that describes the act of using social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other collaborative Internet form of media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Common social media marketing tools include, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and YouTube as well as many independent subject matter blogs. In the context of Internet marketing, social media refers to a collective group of web properties whose content is primarily published by users, not direct employees of the property (e.g. the vast majority of video on YouTube is published by non-YouTube employees).
To capitalize on this emerging trend, your business needs to develop a comprehensive Social Media Marketing strategy. By developing and implementing a carefully planned social media strategy, you can take advantage of current media trends, to accomplish multiple objectives including broadening the reach of your brand and providing an interactive platform for communication with and between your business and your customers.
As with all things web, things change rapidly and having and maintaining active “Social Media Marketing” strategy takes work and cooperative effort from multiple areas of the your organization including management, operations, and communications. Through minimal effort you can yield extraordinary results and form an effective plan for increasing site traffic and brand awareness for your business
Development of the your business’s social marketing strategy is suggested as the first step in defining an online media plan to boost your online marketing efforts. While social networking sites offer access to millions of targeted individuals, it should be viewed as a tool for driving traffic to corporate owned sites such as.ORG and.COM where similar features could be incorporated and where you can guide the visitor experience in a way that creates a deeper more meaningful engagement between your business and the customers.
Establishing a close engagement with your customers through social Marketing, ensures your business truly understands what they want and need. Truly the easiest way to sell is to find out what your customers truly want and need, then offer it to them at a competitive price. The opportunities are boundless, with the right strategy, you can be making customers for life, every time you tweet.