Social media is something that most people take for granted nowadays. It is so common to log into your Facebook account and see what friends and family are doing on an everyday basis. What most people don’t realize about social media is that it has the potential to make you money. You would think that people chatting with their buddies on the web through their favorite social media network could care less about products or services that you have to offer.
But in reality, social media is a perfect place to begin to market what you have to sell because you can find very targeted visitors that will be highly motivated. In this article, we will present strategies that will show you how to harness the power of social media marketing, allowing you to take your business to the next level.
The first thing we need to address is that social media marketing must be done in a specific way. Placing affiliate links or hyperlinks to your money sites is not going to go over well. In the same way that people detest telemarketers or people that spam their email account, the last thing that a person wants to see on their Facebook account is a bunch of links leading to products that they probably don’t want. Of course, you can use the advertising that is offered by many social media networks. You can place your ad, and hope that people click on it. But again, people are not there to buy things. They are there to interact with the people that they know, and will probably care less about anything that you have to sell.
Instead of placing links for people to see under social media network, or placing ads on the side for all to see, you need to take into account why people are interacting in a social media network in the first place. They are there to talk about the events of the day. Some of them have joined certain groups that like to talk about niche specific information. And if you are able to tap into these specific groups, this is where the money will be made. Anything that you sell, it is always about trust. You can have the best product in the world, but if someone does not trust you, you are not going to make the sale. So your first step is to locate like-minded people that are looking for products that you sell so that you can, at some point, show them what you have to offer.
The best way to do this is to offer something for free. You might post a link to something that you found that is related to what everyone is talking about. Once you start doing this, people will expect to see links posted by you. After a while, you can actually begin posting your own links, and they will be none the wiser. They will simply click on the links as they have been doing, and this will lead to future sales. Remember, it’s all about trust and conditioning, and with social media networks, this is true as well.
Hopefully these tips on how to use social media marketing have helped you understand what you need to do in order to utilize these groups to make online sales. As you can see, social networks are a great way to contact like-minded people that will, at some point, become potential customers who will buy the products and services that you have to offer.
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Has Google Panda Changed Social Media Marketing?
Only a few years ago search engine optimization tactics to elevate websites higher on search engine ranking results and attract Internet users to specific sites was based around some extremely dubious practices. These so called SEO ‘black hat’ tactics included articles that were spun, (that is the same article changed slightly and issued in many different versions, on many sites. Keyword filled articles and other tactics such as keywords that were in actual fact hidden in backgrounds. Other underhand tactics were widely employed.
The common thread was that this content did not add value to the Internet experience of those who were searching for content that added value to their professional and personal lives.
Google, as custodians of the most powerful and popular search engine took note of this and has released continuously updated versions of their algorithms (think of them as tiny robots that scour the Internet looking at content)that now punish these practices. The latest of these algorithms, called Panda (and the associated update, Penguin)have changed the playing field.
Today a company’s search engine ranking is determined by and large by the quality of its content. Creating engaging content on social media sites is part and parcel of what is today known as ‘content marketing.
This content can consist of video and images (in fact there are entire studies around what sort of content is best – a combination of types seems to be best) as well as copy.
Senior Google executive Matt Cutts has stated that the content provided must add value to the user experience, must be creative and unique and engaging. This means that content providers need to go that extra mile when they are developing the content that they showcase on social media sites, or the content on blogs and websites that host the content that is promoted by the organisation’s various social media channels.
Social media marketing can be tremendously powerful. Sites like Twitter and Facebook have the ability to increase the reach of the organisation’s sales efforts, as well as the brand itself through the sharing of key messages and the promoting of the brand. A single Tweet can potentially reach thousands though retweets and the reach of extended networks. Many of the other social networks operate in the same way through likes and +1’s, in effect the impact is the same.
The advantages of using the social media are relative cost effectiveness over traditional marketing platforms. However care now needs to be taken to ensure that marketing efforts create value, rather than concentrate on keyword promotion.
Without paying attention to the creation of rich content which is now required by Google the company runs the risk of not taking advantage of the power of the social media.
If the organisation insists on maintaining a reliance on SEO (articles should now contain around 3 – 4% SEO keywords) they run a very real risk of being delisted (or banned) from the search engine ranking. That would spell doom for those companies that are relying heavily on the power and reach of the Internet in order to feed sales funnels.
