Social media marketing has progressed to the point where it's no longer just another channel, full of sound and fury, signifying mostly nothing, and is now an essential component of any serious online marketing business. If you haven't yet gotten on board with this, now is the time.
Why Learn Social Media Marketing?
The fact is that your audience, or at least a vast portion of it, is residing on social networks, and if you are not taking part, you can be quite sure your competition is, gathering all the leads that might have been yours. It's also where they go to get ideas, tips and advice, a game you need to be influencing as well. So, it's really important for your business to learn social media marketing.
Related: Use These 7 Great Tips for Succeeding with Social Media
Learn which social media channels you need
There are a handful of major players that you simply need to be on, and few others that might make a lot of sense given your market.
The top five social media networks as of this writing are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube. The next most significant will be sites like Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, Vine and Snapchat. This seconds tier is a lot more visually oriented, but drives loads of traffic that is very interested in buying.
Understanding each site's demographic can help you decide how much emphasis you should place on each, together with your particular market.
Using social media sites for business
Finding and growing an audience for your business through the use of social media is in many ways far faster and easier than it is with traditional online marketing. The potential of having your content and sites shared far beyond your own reach is very real, and can help grow your influence.
Related: Harness the Power of Social Proof in Your Marketing
Your business can experience exponential growth if your social media is managed well and allowed to grow. There are a number of techniques for doing this, and as you might expect change is a constant.
To help with that here is a great collection of social media resources that will give you a great foundation and knowledge going forward. One of our favorites on this list is the blog Social Media Examiner. If you're serious to learn social media marketing, this blog should be top on your list.
The rewards of a successful social media initiative are many, ranging from large amounts of traffic to developing a truly engaged and passionate following. Both of those sound pretty good to me!