Marketing a product traditionally has always had much to do with creating publicity for it. In the age of internet marketing a website works on the same premise. Exposure is a proven effective method in promotion. In the real world, social media marketing can be expensive and taxing; not so in cyberspace. Online social media marketing is basically comprised of two processes: social bookmarking and social networking. Both allow individuals with similar interests to find each other and share their recommendations.
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is a method that involves the storing and organizing of a user’s preferred web pages. Social bookmarking sites allow users to publicly share their lists, limit viewers to certain individuals, or keep them completely private. Marketing enters the setup in a variety of ways. Users are encouraged to employ tags to organize their bookmarks. The use of tags helps determine the popularity of bookmarked pages as they usually also bear information such as the number of users who have likewise bookmarked them. Bookmarking services also offer web feeds for their bookmark lists, which then allow subscribers to learn about fresh bookmarks made by other users. The process has certainly become more social as features such as comments and ratings are added to it.
Marketing your website using social bookmarking entails listing your pages. Using keywords in your tags enables other users to find links to your pages. Some online marketing services have people creating multiple accounts with different social bookmarking sites in which to bookmark their clients’ sites. There’s no reason why individuals cannot do the same for their own sites. It would take several emails, knowing the different bookmarking services, and a little bit of your time to set up accounts, but the process is free and can be very effective bringing visible results in less than an hour.
Social Networking
There has been an influx of social networking sites of late. While most users get into social networking purely for social ends, it can be a promotional tool as well. Social networking as a means of marketing online involves opening an account under your website’s name, establishing a network by adding contacts and joining groups, and keeping your account fresh with interesting updates and lively participation in all the social activities (leaving comments, chatting, sharing, etc.). This works as a viable marketing method because of the exposure you can garner. You can get exposure by letting your own contacts learn about your site, and because it’s a network, your contacts’ contacts’ contacts (and so on and so forth) can get to your account. The multiplication of traffic opens infinite possibilities about your web visibility in search engines too. Then, if you use keyword tagging for your account, any searcher can get to your account and discover your site as well. Before you know it you’ll have a fan base.
The beauty in social media marketing is that it is not as personality-influenced as traditional social media marketing. Even people who are socially awkward can build a successful online social network without too much effort.
Both social bookmarking and social media marketing can prove to be incredibly effective in promoting your website. However, the true success of each social media marketing endeavor, which is sometimes only evident in the long run, largely depends on the nature of your website. It has to be a website that is constantly worthwhile to visit. It always has to be relevant, useful, and dynamic.
Social media marketing is really the fun part of website promotion. You get quick results and as it boosts exposure to your site, it also positively influences your ranking with search engines. As fun and effective as social media marketing is, the really great thing about it is that it is absolutely free.