I am not using Social Media yet. Why is using Social Media to market my product or service so important?

For those of you new to social media here is the quick overview. Just think of social media participation as being in an online ‘gathering place’ or community with a common interest, where you can post messages. Just like the bulletin board in the office, with the added feature of being able to post a reply, creating a thread.

Some people have one eye on these ‘boards’ all day just so they can interact with their friends online. The best known websites that provide this facility (and a lot more) are Facebook and MySpace.

To make it even simpler, there are programs that let you monitor several of these websites all at once.

Twitter is a strange bird, pun intended. You can ‘tweet’ up to 140 characters in your message. If people are interested in your message (and there are a LOT of people using Twitter), they may choose to follow you. The next time you tweet, your followers get the message.

From a marketing perspective, this is GREAT. Here are self-identifiable groups of people potentially interested in your product, and a loudspeaker system (Twitter) that lets you announce your message. These people congregate in groups on Facebook and MySpace, and they talk amongst themselves. A viewer from the past would say ‘what else is new?’. The point is that word of mouth is alive and well on the internet.

To market your product or service successfully, you need to ‘get the word’ out somehow. Now you can send your marketing message to these communities directly, by participating in these groups and getting your message on their bulletin boards. Not everyone will read it or react to it, but some will eventually.

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Marshall H. Goodman, Consultant
Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing
Phone: (905) 764-3731
Email: goodmama@mhg.on.ca
Website: www.mhg.on.ca