Social Media Is Emerging As A Frontrunner In Boosting Sales

Twitter and Facebook are not just platforms to keep up with friends and family. Marketers are using these platforms for another purpose. They scour these sites as well as others on behalf of the company to see which individuals can be used for marketing campaigns.

Yes, savvy businesses now know that by tapping the digital world they can foster closer relationships with consumers.

Social media has a huge conglomeration of people that want to be part of certain products and/or services.

These individuals are simply waiting to be tapped. There is no denying that social media is hot. For companies it is now a powerful tool to connect with prospective customers.

Using the internet has become the mainstream activity of people today. And the most compelling driver for this trend is without any doubt, the exponential growth of mobiles.

With the internet now within convenient reach with mobiles in hand, consumers are approaching online differently.

It is precisely for this reason business must approach their marketing strategies differently. Let us first try to understand what exactly social media marketing is?

There exist many definitions and explanations. But here is one that explains the concept best.

Social media marketing is a technique that employs social media and social influencers to attain a company’s marketing goal.

Social media is content created for and consumed by people. It is an assortment of websites and applications that enables users to create and share content and participate in social networking. It can include photographs, videos, articles, conversations a person has with friends and blog posts.

And of course there are social influencers.

Social influencers are not eminent persons or celebrities, rather they are common people. These everyday people can make a great impact on consumers by making certain buying decisions.

For example, if a person puts up his or her photograph riding on a motorcycle and visiting a nature camp, it can definitely increase the visibility of the motorcycle brand and induce potential buyers to go for it.

As one successful marketer pointed out, “To understand how social influence works, one must learn to appreciate how people are influenced in the real world”.

The underlying principle by which social media increases sales of a brand is when one person who buys it, influences scores of other to do the same.

For a marketer keen to deploy social marketing techniques, one of the foremost questions can be what kind of influencers sway the market.

With experience, veteran players in the game have this to say.

Identify expert influencers

He is simply an authority on the product that the consumer is thinking of purchasing.

For example, someone who posts excellent photographs can be a key influencer to promote a camera brand. Such people, even though they may not know the audience personally, have huge following and generally have their own blogs.

In their blogs they may review, pass judgments and then rate different cameras. Their influence is enormous because they have already displayed their great skills and expertise they have in photography.

Identify positional influencers

Typically a positional influencer is close to the consumer. He or she can be a family member or a close friend. By being part of the consumer’s inner circle, they can influence purchasing decisions.

Since these influencers can be spread across a broad geographical territory, the only way to interact with them is via social platforms like Facebook or Whatsapp.

If a high consideration purchase like a dishwasher is to be made, the opinion of a couple of people can matter a lot.

But here is a caveat.

It is not enough to use social influence marketing principles in isolation. It may be essential to blend social influence marketing with traditional marketing efforts.

To summarize here are some takeaways

• Video is now indispensable – More marketers than ever before are using videos for their promotional.
• Facebook dominates as the most important platform for marketers
• Marketers are putting more efforts to know the most effective social tactics and ways to reach out to their target audiences.

The good and bad of a brand can be propagated across the internet in no time. It can cause intense benefits or severe harm. That is why a marketer has to be careful.

One of the many attributes of the social media is it can stand out from other forms of marketing provided business know how to leverage it.