Social Media - A Marketing Strategy or Advertising Medium

Last month I read an article about Social Media Marketing. The reaction from the comments were quite interesting. The author was pointing out the reality of the noise that Social Media Marketing is making on the conventional marketing arena. Some of the respondents were saying that they had not yet seen any marketing activities within Social Media forums. I was left wondering whether what they had not seen were Advertisements or the Marketing Strategies. Maybe the question to ask is whether Social Media is a Marketing Strategy or it is an Advertising Medium. A Marketing Strategy should be able to give us a competitive age whilst increasing our sales. Whereas an Advertising Medium is just a vehicle that carries our advertisements. Therefore our Marketing Strategy on Social Media should also make us utilize the Social Media forums as an Advertising Medium. However in Social Media Marketing we do not bombard our customers with Advertisements. It is possible, for one to be active in Social Media Marketing without running any visible advertisements. In Social Media Marketing we attract prospecting clients by telling them more about us - Inbound Marketing. We do not push our products to them with no added value.

With Inbound Marketing we seek a two way communication and customer feedback is cardinal. Marketing efforts are meant to add value and this could be through education or any other engaging activity like competitions or any form of entertainment. In Social Media Forums, participants share information, pictures, videos and the most interesting items attract dialogue. An astute Social Media Marketing Strategist should be able to follow the same methodology. Our campaigns can support the activities of our customers with an endeavor to craft a Social Relationship. What will keep customers engaged and loyal is if they feel that they are being valued. This is achieved through prompt responses to their input. Some may not be online all the time. Whilst it could be the best achievement to have everyone possible respond to your activities, this is highly impossible because we are tickled by different things and our moods are not always similar.

This brings us to another cardinal aspect in Social Media Marketing. We ought to have a target market, and within that market a target audience. Our target market will listen to us, but our audience will hear us and respond thereby completing the communication cycle. Whenever you have anything to say, you pick up the relevant audience to share with. If you just shoot in the dark, yes, you might have one or too of your targeted audience getting you, but you may not have a 100%  strike rate. This is the advantage with Social Media Marketing. It is possible to segment your audience to your exact target. If you are in apparel business, every individual needs to clothe themselves, but there is specific apparel influenced by weather patterns, gender, culture and so on. With a Marketing campaign or an Advertisement in Social Media Forums, you can target a specific audience and you will be assured of a response. This remains factual even for business to business communication. You can be on Social Media Forums and not be able to see a single advertisement if you are not the target audience of a particular campaign.

Have you done a Social Media Marketing Strategy and does it include any Advertisements on Social Media Forums? We would like to hear your experiences.  Feel free to get in touch if you need any assistance in this regard.