Part 2: Online Social Media De-mystified – How to Incorporate Social Media into Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Traditional marketing – direct mail, advertising on TV, radio in newspapers – is considered push marketing. Using this method, you’re pushing your message out to your target audiences. Social Media is considered pull marketing. With it, you pull your target audience into your sites and convert them to leads and then to customers. Pull marketing includes YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Digg, to name a few.

Traditional media is suffering while social media is thriving. Why? Your targets seek you out, and are thus immediately considered warm leads. They find you via your content, your blogs, your SEO, analytics, and more. Social media has become a staple within the marketing strategy. It’s no longer a fun novelty, as evidenced by large companies that are seeing a dramatic return on their investment. Social media marketing is highly measureable. It’s a massive platform of hundreds of millions. It’s a major driver of leads which convert to sales. And, isn’t it more fun than designing a direct mail postcard or newspaper ad? Sure it is. It’s interactive, ever-changing, and interesting. It’s like attending a networking event online and getting to know people who are interested in what you have to say and to offer.

At the minimum, you should be on Twitter and Facebook. LinkedIn and others? Take a look at them and judge for yourself if they fit into your marketing mix. LinkedIn has a Q&A and a discussion forum that might be appropriate for you to participate in so that you can join conversations relevant to your business. Social media is much cheaper than traditional media and a company’s ability to drive traffic has grown exponentially from the days of paid and organic search being the primary online drivers.

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