In my previous article, I was somehow critical about the state of advertising in social media. I do believe that marketing is a necessity in a free market and that it can give great results when done with integrity. And by that, I mean not disguising Ads into user generated content. And I have to admit, there are a number of companies that just do that and they have gained a lot as their customers have gained also. In this post, I will talk about a few techniques that can be used on social media for marketing purposes. As you know my philosophy, I’m against black-hat techniques when it comes to selling products, so everything here might sound very boring to some…

Social media for promotion

Let’s say a friend of yours just had a great deal at Best Buy. The deal is so good that he had to tell you, which led to you buying that same product. That’s great because Best Buy benefits from word-of-mouth marketing here. First, they promote their products and then word-of-mouth happens with sales flowing. Social media offers very much the same possibility. When people retweet or tag a page on Facebook, their friends get notified which is the same as if they had talked about it. Now what’s great with social media is that marketers can easily measure the impact of their campaign by using a brand management and monitoring solution. Some companies have used this technique with great results and their increased effort in this direction is just a proof of it.

Broadcasting techniques

When markets are global, broadcasting become effective way 0f marketing. There are marketers that use Twitter to reach as much people as possible. Of course, having a lot of followers helps in this technique. However, social media is very good at minimizing the cost per person reached. A follower will not cost more than a few cents to acquire so people can be reached for a very cheap price.

Customer retention techniques

It is common knowledge to say that customer retention is an important issue for marketing. It is also known that personalization of customer communication is a big factor in customers loyalty. The good thing with social media is that it can create a community around a certain brand which is going to be active about how to deal with a lot of things. The marketing management’s role here is to coordinate and participate in the conversation and get to know the customers. since distance between the customer and the company is diminished, effort can be spent on stuff like keeping in touch with customers and receiving frequent feedback. Again, brand monitoring is great when it comes to sensing important issues that need to be addressed. Here, the idea is to turn the fire off when things get nasty on social media.

Local business marketing techniques and Social media

With location-based social media gaining popularity, businesses that offer services need to be present on those platforms. Don’t forget that there are intangibles involved with services, so it’s always good to adopt cutting edge techniques and have a presence where your competition isn’t really present. Also, people are increasing using things like Google Map to look for services in their area. So marketing needs to be there and be active so it can get the right king of attention for the business.

Marketing techniques and integrity

Of course, all of these should be done by user accounts that clearly indicate a link with the brand. Without this indication, companies are misleading consumers about the nature of the messages that they are sending out there. While this technique can be fruitful in the short run, people will end up uncovering the deceitful methods and things can get worse than if no effort was spent on social media at all.