Benefits of Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Social Media Marketing is a crucial part of the marketing mix in helping build company brand and exposure as well as create opportunities for businesses to acquire and retain customers through engagement.
The Human Factor: Word of Mouth Advertising & Reviews
All marketing leaders will tell you that word of mouth advertising is the best form of marketing for any company. However, with the advent of web technology, websites now carry much of the new medium for word of mouth advertising through online social networks and consumer review postings.
Searching the Internet with a search engine means that the information is selected by computer software that attempts to determine meaning and relevance. Social media bookmarks and postings is the result of human action, we filter the sites we view and bookmark/post links only to those sites that provide value. Some people are starting to value social bookmarks, postings, reviews, and tags created by friends and community users over that of the saturation of automated search engine results. According to MarketSherpa, 86.9% of respondents said they would trust a friend's recommendation over a review by a critic, while 83.8% said they would trust user reviews over a critic.
Increase Website Traffic
With 272 Million people worldwide using social networks and 100+ Million daily feeds on social networks to 190 countries2, Web 2.0 sites are attracting a large number of regular users who generate a lot of traffic. Increasing traffic helps boost website popularity and increased popularity is known to boost search engine rankings.
Increase Brand Awareness and Sales
Social media is a great vehicle to start building relationships with a community of followers interested in your products and services. Celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Oprah are active participants in social media with Million+ followers. With positive reviews, displayed industry authority, and active community interactivity, it will help overall visibility and brand equity as well as benefit sales.
Increase SEO Score
Social Media Marketing can also benefit Search Engine Optimization (SEO) through the increase in links to your website from public social media websites. These links create added SEO score to your website. Search engines value inbound links to your website because they are an indication of your website popularity, which then increases your own search engine ranking.
Exposure to Being Found by Fellow Social Media Members
Social Media sites typically allow users to set their bookmarks and postings as private or public. By setting them as public, users are able to share their bookmarks/postings with other users, which further spreads the popularity of your website. Many social networking sites actually refer users to other users that share similar interests, in which case links and postings spread even further and gain more popularity.