You’ve read about social media and how it’s changing the face of the internet. You’ve heard of and even use some sites you believe are social media sites yourself; sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter for example.

You know that some of these sites have adverts on them too, but is that it? Is that really all we’re talking about when we’re looking at social media marketing or is there something more? Let’s start at the beginning.

Essentially social media is any media that can be disseminated through social interaction. I know that’s a bit of a mouthful but basically it means users can evolve, share and create new content given the tools to do so.

As an example, let’s say this article is the media. At the bottom of the page you the visitor can add comments. Everyone can read them, and then I could change the article or comment back on those comments. Wikipedia is a similar example but everyone can access the article directly and make changes. The important point is that with each interaction the media changes.

The featured video here is an example of what social media means to businesses by using a simple example of ice-cream production and the effect social media can have on that market.

The tools of social media are widely dispersed in the form of forums, blogs, social networking sites, ratings, bookmarking, instant messaging and the like. So when we start to think about social media marketing, it’s about something much more fundamental than advertising panels on social networks.

Why Has Social Media Become So Popular?

Social media has always existed in some form, word of mouth, recommendation, letter writing, etc. What has changed is the way we can interact with each other. In hindsight, it would be easy to believe that this is what the internet was designed to do. It’s certainly the way our use of the internet is evolving.

Social Media Tools Available

The range of social media applications available today are seemingly limitless with new applications coming to market all the time. A selection of the some of the more common applications currently in popular use includes:

• Blogs (blogger, wordpress, etc)
• Micro-blogging (Twitter, Tumblr, etc)
• Social Networking (Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, etc)
• Wiki Projects (Wikipedia, etc)
• Social Bookmarking (Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc)
• Social News (Digg, Reddit, etc)
• Reviews and Opinions (epinions, yelp, etc)
• Photo Sharing (Flickr, Picassa, etc)
• Video Sharing (Youtube, Metacafe, etc)
• Music Sharing (Last.fm, imeem, etc)
• Community Q&A (Google Answers, Yahoo! Answers, etc)
• Virtual Worlds (Second Life, The Sims, etc)

And the list really could go on. Social media can take many different forms, including forums, weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and bookmarking and these applications are found increasingly on web sites everywhere.

So Where Should I start With Social Media Marketing?

So hopefully it’s clear now that social media marketing is a concept that’s a little more involved than redirecting some advertising budget to Facebook and Youtube. The problem is turned on its head. With so many options for social media marketing it can be hard to know where to begin.

Social media marketing should have three very important attributes:

• It should create a “buzz”, be newsworthy or in some other way attract attention
• It should be mobile. Your fans should be able to take control and promote it themselves
• It should evolve. You must relinquish control

This last point is very scary for a lot of organisations as a badly designed social media campaign can backfire spectacularly in the worst case scenario. That’s why it’s essential to fully engage and respect the target user groups when putting your campaign plans together.

Next Steps

You need to get the business to buy into the concept of social media marketing before you venture into the market with any zeal, particularly ensuring there’s an understanding and acceptance of the fact that you will inevitably have to relinquish control of your output.

A good next port of call would be to consider how you will address the market. My related article, Creating an Effective Social Media Strategy should offer some useful advice on how to go about the next stages.