Mediaboss Marketing

Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of Internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool.The goal of SMM is to produce content that users will share with their social network to help a company increase brand exposure and broaden customer reach.

One of the key components of SMM is social media optimization (SMO). Like search engine optimization (SEO), SMO is a strategy for drawing new and unique visitors to a website. SMO can be done two ways: adding social media links to content, such as RSS feeds and sharing buttons -- or promoting activity through social media by updating statuses or tweets, or blog posts.

SMM helps a company get direct feedback from customers (and potential customers) while making the company seem more personable. The interactive parts of social media give customers the opportunity to ask questions or voice complaints and feel they are being heard. This aspect of SMM is called social customer relationship management (social CRM).

SMM became more common with the increased popularity of websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and YouTube. In response, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has updated its rules to include SMM. If a company or its advertising agency provides a blogger or other online commenter with free products or other incentives to generate positive buzz for a product, the online comments will be treated legally as endorsements. Both the blogger and the company will be held responsible for ensuring that the incentives are clearly and conspicuously disclosed, and that the blogger's posts contain no misleading or unsubstantiated statements and otherwise complies with the FTC's rules concerning unfair or deceptive advertising.

See also: relationship marketing, social graph, social search engine, Microsoft TownHall, buzz marketing, viral marketing

Dig Deeper

FTC compliance mandates new rules for social media marketing.

How to design an FTC compliance program for social media marketing.

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10 steps to a practical social media business strategy.

Social media revenue increasing even though user increase in modest.

This was last updated in March 2011

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What is social media marketing (SMM)? - Definition from ...

Leveraging the power of content and social media marketing can help elevate your audience and customer base in a dramatic way. But getting started without any previous experience or insight could be challenging.

It's vital that you understand social media marketing fundamentals. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, abiding by these 10 laws will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand and -- perhaps most importantly -- your bottom line.

1. The Law of Listening Success with social media and content marketing requires more listening and less talking. Read your target audiences online content and join discussions to learn whats important to them. Only then can you create content and spark conversations that add value rather than clutter to their lives.

2. The Law of Focus Its better to specialize than to be a jack-of-all-trades. A highly-focused social media and content marketing strategy intended to build a strong brand has a better chance for success than a broad strategy that attempts to be all things to all people.

3. The Law of Quality Quality trumps quantity. Its better to have 1,000 online connections who read, share and talk about your content with their own audiences than 10,000 connections who disappear after connecting with you the first time.

4. The Law of Patience Social media and content marketing success doesnt happen overnight. While its possible to catch lightning in a bottle, its far more likely that youll need to commit to the long haul to achieve results.

5. The Law of Compounding If you publish amazing, quality content and work to build your online audience of quality followers, theyll share it with their own audiences on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, their own blogs and more.

This sharing and discussing of your content opens new entry points for search engines like Google to find it in keyword searches. Those entry points could grow to hundreds or thousands of more potential ways for people to find you online.

6. The Law of Influence Spend time finding the online influencers in your market who have quality audiences and are likely to be interested in your products, services and business. Connect with those people and work to build relationships with them.

If you get on their radar as an authoritative, interesting source of useful information, they might share your content with their own followers, which could put you and your business in front of a huge new audience.

7. The Law of Value If you spend all your time on the social Web directly promoting your products and services, people will stop listening. You must add value to the conversation. Focus less on conversions and more on creating amazing content and developing relationships with online influencers. In time, those people will become a powerful catalyst for word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

8. The Law of Acknowledgment You wouldnt ignore someone who reaches out to you in person so dont ignore them online. Building relationships is one of the most important parts of social media marketing success, so always acknowledge every person who reaches out to you.

9. The Law of Accessibility Dont publish your content and then disappear. Be available to your audience. That means you need to consistently publish content and participate in conversations. Followers online can be fickle and they wont hesitate to replace you if you disappear for weeks or months.

10. The Law of Reciprocity You cant expect others to share your content and talk about you if you dont do the same for them. So, a portion of the time you spend on social media should be focused on sharing and talking about content published by others.

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10 Laws of Social Media Marketing - Entrepreneur

Social marketing emerged as a valuable commercial tactic in the 1970s, created by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman. The essential principle is that marketing ideologies used when selling consumer merchandise can also be applied to promote concepts, feelings, and behaviors. Both marketing strategies aim to determine what people want and need and then cater to this, instead of attempting to convince the public to buy whatever the company happens to be selling. Social marketing differs from consumer marketing in that it seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society.(1) This method has proven to be extremely effective for international health campaigns, such as encouraging contraceptives or the use of ORT.

In consumer marketing, there are four key principles known as the four Ps, including product, price, place, and promotion. These exist in social marketing also, along with four additional Ps.(2) In social marketing, the product is not always a tangible object. While sometimes it is physical (for example, distribution of contraceptives), it often comes in the form of providing a service, promoting a practice, or raising awareness about an idea. The success of a product depends largely on public belief that there is a real problem, and that this new invention will help to solve the issue. The price in social marketing refers to what the user must do to acquire the product (this could be financial cost, but is more likely a dedication of time, effort, or potential risk). The benefits must be greater than the costs in order to be of significant value. Place refers to the manner in which the merchandise reaches the buyer. For tangible items, this means the method of dissemination (such as free distribution, trucks, stores, etc.), while for intangible items, this represents choices about how the information is spread (such as media use, training demonstrations, and public postings). Researchers must observe the routine schedule of their market pool in order to identify the best way to convey their message. Promotion is comprised of publicity, media support, personal sales techniques, and attention-grabbing ploys, all of which should concentrate on fostering and maintaining sufficient demand for the item. The four additional Ps specific to social marketing are publics (internal and external groups involved with an organization), partnership (joining with other groups with common goals), policy (media advocacy organizations can sometimes supplement social marketing schemes if policy change is necessary), and purse strings (funding, grants and donations from various programs and the government are necessary to help fuel social marketing plans).(3)

Just as consulting can be helpful for commercial consumer marketing, social marketing also benefits from collaboration. We inclue below a few examples of organizations that strive to help with the marketing of social behavior changes.

This network is comprised of public health authorities across the local, state and national sectors, all with goals for greater comprehension and application of social marketing in public health. The collaborative team works to improve community health by developing effective, consumer-focused strategies, starting with a target audience to provide a framework for understanding their behavior and determining the most effective place to intervene. Examples of social marketing successes in the US include Floridas Truth campaign, which led to a 19% reduction in cigarette smoking middle school students in just one year. Another accomplishment was North Carolinas Click it or Ticket campaign, which resulted in a 17% increase in seatbelt use over just 13 months. As Leah Devlin, State Health Director, Division of Public Health states,with social marketing, you can have some truly improved outcomes. Because it is evidence-based, based on what works, you have more effective use of resources.(4)

Social marketing is an ever-evolving concept, and observing which approaches yield positive results with a certain audience can assist with making future strategies even more successful. This group defines six critical phases of the social marketing process: 1. Define the public health problem being addressed, 2. Conduct market research and craft a market strategy, 3. Plan the intervention, 4. Plan program monitoring and evaluation, and 5. Implement and evaluate the intervention.(5) The Turning Point also works in concert with The Watson Group, a marketing communications agency that focuses on social marketing services for programs aiming to shift health behaviors and prevent violence.

This program exists as a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Health marketing is defined by the Center as the creating, communicating, and delivering of health information and interventions using customer-centered and science-based strategies to protect and promote the health of diverse populations.(6) Health marketing follows the previously mentioned framework of the marketing mix, including the same concepts of the Four Ps of traditional marketing (product, price, place, and promotion), yet tailored to different social demands.

The National Center for Health Marketing is consistently working on many projects at once. Current projects include the Get smart campaign (promoting appropriate antibiotic use), One test, Two lives (to ensure that all women are tested for HIV early in their pregnancy), and Choose your cover (a skin cancer prevention campaign), along with dozens of others. For example, a recent CDC intervention was implemented among the African American population in Portland, Oregon, aiming to increase cardiovascular health via communication, training, and advertising. Through community systems and connections such as health centers, schools, and local venues, the citizens were able to improve their health. This particular health intervention was part of the greater REACH U.S. program (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health Across the U.S.), which addresses health disparities between ethnicities throughout all stages of life. The organization has established creative techniques that center on racial and ethnic enclaves. Target groups include African Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders. REACH communities enable and encourage residents to (1) seek better health; (2) help change local health care practices; and (3) mobilize communities to implement evidence-based public health programs that address their unique social, historical, economic, and cultural circumstances.(7)

This center exists as a partnership between the Department of Health in England and Consumer Focus, working with programs of all sectors to develop ways to promote socially responsible behaviors. The center was established as part of the English governments National Social Marketing Strategy for Health, set in motion after a study showing how social marketing can drastically improve the success of health campaigns on both national and local scales. Their main clients consist of those working at the consumer end of health promotion: those in the PCTs, NHS, SHAs, PHOs and local authorities, in addition to collaborating with the Chartered Institute of Marketing and the Marketing and Sales Standards Setting Body to establish a set of standards for social marketing consultants. The National Social Marketing Center strives to assist anyone creating behavior interventions for a social good.(8)

(1) Weinreich, N. What is Social Marketing? Weinreich Communications (2006). Accessed on 20 July 2010.

(4) The Turning Point Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative, The Watson Group. Accessed on 20 July 2010.

(6) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health Marketing. Department of Health and Human Services, (2006). Accessed on 21 July 2010.

(7) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, REACH U.S. CDC, (2010). Accessed on 21 July 2010.

(8) National Social Marketing Centre, (2010). Accessed on 21 July 2010.

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Module 1: What is Social Marketing? - Unite For Sight

Effective Strategies

Social Media Marketing requires a large investment of time and effort. For any business owner, time is a valuable commodity, and you often dont have the capital to staff a department dedicated to managing your social media campaign. What you need are Social Media Experts, who, with the right tools and analytics, can deliver the results you need. Did you know that social media is one of the most cost-effective strategies over any other traditional form of display advertising? Social media marketing continues to build your reputation and bring in leads even when youre not actively working on it.

Even if you have thousands of likes on Facebook, a large and loyal following of fans, and a flock of Twitter followers actively tweeting about your brand you can still be missing the mark. Exposure is fantastic, but if you cant tie social media interactions to the metrics that matter most to your business (e.g. revenue, conversions, leads, sales or orders), then consider replacing your social media marketing agency.

We Evaluate, Plan, Design, Market, Manage and Most Importantly MEASURE Your Social Media efforts!

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Social Media Marketing Company - Looking For Greatness?

ChristiaNet is an expert Social Media marketing agency specializing in customized integrated lead generation and sales solutions. Since 1997 we have assisted more than two thousand organizations in every conceivable industry with their social media marketing needs. From the solo entrepreneur to the multi-national corporations, our clients have produced an estimated $150 million in revenues through our custom sales solutions regardless of the state of the economy.

Organizations across the country are generating an incredible number of highly qualified leads and sales by cultivating a professional social media presence. However, it doesn't happen overnight. It takes a seasoned expert who can leverage various social media platforms to design a custom lead generation and sales solution specifically built around your company's audience.

There are TWO BILLION active people on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Our tailored methodologies enable you to reach custom audiences by title, industry, age, gender, location, interests, keywords and more! Replace cold calling, knocking on doors, tire kickers and time wasters with a continual flow of cost effective inbound leads and sales.

What kind of results can we deliver? ChristiaNet's Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts stand as a testament to our social media expertise by reaching millions of unique people per week. Our unique methodologies have helped us gain 2,000,000 Facebook Fans, 20,000 C-Suite USA Connections and 50,000 Twitter Followers for our own lead generation and sales. If we can achieve this level of success for ourselves, envision what we can do for you.

We provide custom setup, content development, training and methodologies for SALES for each of the social media platforms. Larger custom packages and monthly retainers are available upon request.

Call NOW for a FREE Social Media Consultation281-465-9533

"I recently contracted with ChristiaNet for their custom LinkedIn Sales Package. I thought I had put together a pretty good LI profile but the transformation they wrought astonished me. The ChristiaNet team succinctly clarified my abstract business concept and presented it in an easily understandable format for lead generation and sales. Bill and Shanon's professional attention to detail and customer service (and their prompt delivery) made the entire experience both a rewarding and successful endeavor for me and my company."

-- John Geary, CEO GBT, Attorney

"ChristiaNet created a finely crafted social media lead generation and sales process built specifically around Source Point's custom component manufacturing business. The professional language designed for our target audience of engineers, manufacturers and product developers was a huge help in engaging new prospects for our services. Source Point Associates now has a turnkey system with complete control to generate as many highly qualified leads as possible, as quickly as possible in a much more cost effective manner. If you are looking to build lasting relationships and generate high quality leads for sales, ChristiaNet is the company for you."

-- Larry Megugorac, President, Source Point Associates

"We have used William and ChristiaNet on several occasions and the results always exceeded expectations. I will use them again when the time arises. Great job and lots of personal effort in making our project a great success."

-- Billy Cox, Founder, Billy Cox International, Motivational Speaker

"William T Cooper and ChristiaNet were of great value to my company, Langhout International, LLC. I experienced superior service with their LinkedIn Sales Package. William helped me re-organize my LinkedIn account making it appear significantly more professional and attractive to potential leads. The new look and feel is helping me to increase my reach, and ultimately my sales. Shanon Cooper is an expert writer and editor, and she created a professional profile for me using the background materials I provided. They have helped me with strategies to approach new connections and build my network with the right connections. I am very grateful for their work on my behalf, and am now utilizing and maximizing LinkedIn to my benefit."

-- Michael Langhout, CEO Advisor

"ChristiaNet has made a huge positive impact on the way WaterStone reaches out to its ministry community through social media. Bill's LinkedIn Sales Packages, Facebook marketing, and Twitter marketing programs are comprehensive, easy-to-understand turnkey solutions. WaterStone is capitalizing on Bill's long and deep experience in social media marketing by adopting and applying ChristiaNet's systems as we implement strategic LinkedIn lead generation campaigns. ChristiaNet's proven marketing systems, coaching calls and customized scripting provide our team with clear action steps that are making an immediate measurable difference in our lead generation results. Bill's knowledge in the social marketing industry is unparalleled."

-- William J Stevens, Vice President, Giving Strategies WaterStone

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ChristiaNet Social Media Marketing for Facebook, LinkedIn ...