An introduction to Social media

An introduction to Social media

Today we hear the crowd around us talking more about the buzz words like social media, social networking sites, facebook marketing etc. and so many raise basic questions such as

What is social networking?

What is social media marketing?

How can we use social media in business? etc

In this article, I would try to answer these questions in a very simple and comprehensive way, hoping this would help you to get a hang on social media and its relevance in business and marketing.

What is social Media?

The term social media refers to the use of online and mobile technologies to turn social communication into more interactive dialogue. According to Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein social media is  "a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content."
In simple terms, I would say social media is a collection of ubiquitous online tools that allow users to extend social interaction at online, and can do at anytime from anywhere.

Social media can take on many different forms, including Internet forums, weblogs, social blogs, micro-blogging, wikis, podcasts, rating, pictures or video sharing and social bookmarking etc. The websites that enable this kind of social interactions online are collectively known as Social networking sites, the most popular them are Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn etc. social networking sites provide the facilities to share their profile, files, applications with their friends or contact and do interactions.       

What is social media marketing?

Social Media Marketing (SMM) refers to the use of social media sites or tools to market products and  services to the targeted customers in a much interactive and cost effective way. In other words, SMM is a means of attracting more traffic to the websites, and more business.

 Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a form of internet marketing which seeks to achieve branding and marketing communication goals through the participation in various social media networks such as MySpace, Facebook, YouTube,  Digg,  Flickr, Twitter etc.

On the other side, marketers need to spread their messages where their customers are to sell their products. That’s way social networking sites are emerging as a powerful new kind of marketing tool. In fact three social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace – are among the top trafficked web sites in the world.

Social media in business

Social networking sites are a good platform to market your products online. Today’s consumers spend a good amount of their time at Internet browsing for new products, their favorite brands and merchandise. In fact, we can social media sites for sell our products and services, to update customers about new product launch and run a online customer service at a low cost.

Social media sites allow business owners  to seek out new customers through referrals from other customers, and to create positive and rapid word-of-mouth for new products and services.

To make your business social media friendly, you have to have presence in these social media sites. We can start our presence by creating business profiles in Facebook, twitter etc. Facebook allows you business or brand have a webpage to tell the world who you are and what you do, at free of cost. You can have an account in twitter, where you can add your customers as followers, and let them know about your offers, new product launches etc through micro-blogging.

Social Media Marketing related to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO). Benefits of using SMO and SEO along with SMM are many as these techniques would hep the social media sites to attract more customers towards your website.

About the Author

Firoz Muhammed is the author of this comprehensive article on Social Media and social networking, he is Social Media Enthusiast and writer on digital media topics. He is a blogger and expert in SEO, SMO and SEM techniques.  You can reach him on his mail id: firozct@gmail.com @ SEO Company

References

1.Technorati.com- Social Media Marketing is Crucial to your Business Success.

2. Wikipedia.org - Social Media Marketing –

AscentRanks.com

AscentRanks is an Internet Marketing agency based in Bangalore, India, provides Search Engine Optimization(SEO), Search Engine Optimization (SMO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM) services. We do help our customers to attract more traffic their website and find more business and revenue.

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