Using Social Media To Your Advantage
Posted in Computers on December 16th, 2009 by ComputersBack in the bad old days, Internet marketing largely consisted of sending out spam emails and randomly placing banner ads around the web. These days, web advertising is more targeted than ever before, and that’s largely thanks to social networking websites. If you don’t already advertise on social networking sites, you should start.
The Benefits
Individually Targeted Advertising – When you invest in advertising that is placed on a social media site such as Twitter, MySpace or Facebook, you are not simply purchasing a generic pay-per-click advertisement. Social media sites special in that the users of these sites entrust their personal information to the databases that sit behind the sites. This basically means that advertisements are matched up with the selected keywords that the user has placed within their profile. For instance, if a user is male and has a birth date of 1971, ads that are specific to his gender and age group will be placed on his profile each and every time he logs in. In terms of targeted marketing, this is an incredibly powerful tool because the ads that appear on an individual’s profile page are specifically relevant to that person.
Word-of-Mouth – Another benefit of advertising on a social media site is word-of-mouth advertising from the people ordering and using your products. In March of 2009 the average number of friends per Facebook user was 120. Consider that users post their likes and dislikes to their profile on a daily basis. If they’re posting about your product and how amazing it is, there are potentially 120 pairs of eyes that see the virtues of your product. When you take into account that 120 pairs of eyes look at each of the original 120, you can see that the numbers begin to grow exponentially. Another component is word of mouth advertising. This equates to the amount of influence that individuals have within their network of friends and family. Those who have deep influence on their peers can have a tremendous effect upon the popularity of your product or service.
Web Traffic, Brand Awareness and Global Reach – The final yet important three benefits of social media advertising are the increase of traffic to your website, a broad customer reach and growth of your brand awareness. The first point is that when you have a web advertisement that is matched up to an individual person’s profile, that person will be more likely to actually click on your ad. Positive brand awareness is based on the quality of your product plus the word-of-mouth advertising you’ll receive. When users of social networks like your products they’ll talk about them. Remember, they’re broadcasting, on average, to a group of 120 people or more when they do this. Finally, a basic issue that many people forget is that the web is a global phenomenon. You will reach more people through social media than you could ever reach through other standard forms of advertising and because of the individually targeted nature of the advertising these ads are more likely to work.
Advertising within the context of a social media Web site is more than just a pay-per-click issue. Your Web site, which you’ve so carefully crafted with its amazing ecommerce design, quality user interface and relevant content will sit out on the Internet and pull in a few visitors now and then. However, if you choose to harness the power of advertising within a social network, you’ll find that the return on investment will be greater than you could have ever imagined. So much so, that you’ll find yourself laughing all the way to the bank.