There are a number of forms of social media available over the web, targeting certain groups of audience, now it is the duty of marketers to identify the need to choose the right kind of social media for the marketing of their business.
These include;
Blogs Amongst the most favourite, this form of SMM is thriving today. Web-Log eventually shortened to Blog was started not so long ago by Justin Hall, a student at Swarthmore College, blogging about video games and consoles. Blogging flourished with the launch of Blogger and LiveJournal after 1999. Today, almost a 100,000 new blogs are created each dayrepresenting a huge audience belonging from different segments of society.
The main advantage of blogging includes direct communication with the (potential) customer. It focuses of the most successful strategy of marketers that is "word of mouth". For a blog to be successful, it is important to engage with fellow bloggers and community, avoid negativity and promote well being and positivity as a whole. |
| Adam Curry "Podfather" |
The best feature of marketing with webinars and podcasts is that it targets a large number of audience and collects feedback instantly. The target audience can ask questions on spot, without having to travel to attend the informational or marketing campaign as in the case of old style seminars.
Online Articles, White Papers and E-Books The world wide web (www) is filled with articles submittedon a daily basis to article directories by content writers around the globe. These article sharing websites or article directories pay these content writers and publish their writings, mostly in shape of 500 word length articles. Today, we see many businesses hiring these content writers and spreading information as well as goodwill for their business across the web.
Marketing through publishing articles or electronic books is considered a clever strategy of marketers that no doubt effects the decisions of general public specially, reference groups.
Videos & Photo Sharing being the most fashionable form of today's marketing, is famous all around the world, young and old alike. Video sharing's history begins with the monopolist"Youtube", it came and conquered and still considered a market leader of video sharing media on the web. Its success revolves mostly on promoting and creating interesting chanels and encouraging user based content. Same goes for Photo sharing websites, like Flicker and Instagram, users promote themselves and their businesses through interesting images and portfolios. The success speaks for itself for the businesses thriving globally.
Social Networks came into fashion with the launch of Mspace, a website to attract the friendster group of the society, soon Mark Zuckerberg, a student at Harward University caught the idea and established thefacebook exclusively for Harward university affiliates, later on the name changed into "facebook" and it went global. From there the rise of social media networking took off and today it is considered an online service to establish relationships based on friendships, kinship, shared interests, ideas or business.Marketing on social media networks has become vital specially in case of startup businesses or BtoC marketing. The business marketers link the company website with social media sites like facebook or linkedin to communicate to their target market.
Mobile and Location Marketing becoming more doable with in the today's world of connectivity. people want information on-the-go and mobile apps (applications) has made it easier than ever. Today almost all the big names in market have mobile applications, delivering up-to-date and handy information to its users.
Small businesses have realized the importance of reaching their target audience through their mobiles, and gained quick success in meeting their goals.
