Social-media marketing (SMM)

Facebook began as a way for college students to communicate and share information with each other. But over the past few years, the network expanded so that anyone — an individual or a business — can create a profile on the social-networking website. and everyone has. Moreover, other sites like Twitter and LinkedIn also allow people throughout the world to connect like never before.

The marketing implications are profound. Nearly as many people are searching for products, services, and businesses on Facebook as on Google. Users spend many minutes a day on these sites. Facebook and Twitter have become mediums through which companies can broadcast their messages instantly to interested parties throughout the world. But there is a right and wrong way to use social-media websites.

Market Rocker has created an extensive social-media marketing strategy encompassing the opportunities provided by the three most-popular networks:

  • Facebook is a general site that allows companies to create “pages” through which firms can post news, special offers, product information, photos and videos as well as elicit customer feedback through message boards and comments.
  • Twitter is a site geared towards sending short links to content elsewhere on the Internet (like a business website).
  • LinkedIn is a popular site on which businesses can individuals build business-specific profiles and share best practices, advertise business opportunities, and promote themselves.

Each of the networks requires a different strategy and focus. and most importantly, a business wants to ensure they they do not spam — it is the quickest way to lose “friends” and Facebook and “followers” on Twitter. For example, businesses do not want to send twenty “tweets” or Facebook status-updates every hour with links to press releases and product pages. As usual, quality beats quantity.

It takes time to build a large, effective presence on social-media networks, but the results will be worthwhile. Market Rocker can advise and manage a company’s social-network presence to gain as much relevant traffic from those websites as possible. In the end, social networks on the Internet are merely just another type of landing page.