What is Social Marketing?

The term “social marketing” has become very popular on the Internet with the advent of Web 2.0. With a greater part of the online community taking part in shaping a variety of Websites and even products, “marketing through people” has gained a high importance. Social marketing is nothing but the publicity brought about by social media. This is also known as social media optimization (SMO).

So what is this social media through which Websites can gain popularity? Well, social media includes community Websites, online communities, blogs, RSS feeds, videos and photographs that can be posted on Websites, and a number of other media through which the viewer of the Websites themselves can spread the word. Social marketing uses the oldest technique of marketing -- word of mouth -- by harnessing the latest technology available on the Internet. Many times social marketing has been linked to the term “viral marketing”: the spread of information found on a Website by using the Internet. To an extent this is true, as both use the resources of the Internet such as social bookmarking, blogging and video and photo sharing sites.

The content of the Website should be worth reading or looking at. Images and videos often add to the content value of the Website. By posting images and videos (which have the URL of the Website), on popular sites such as YouTube.com or Flickr, the Website can gain popularity among Internet users. Furthermore, if the content is in the form of text, it could be made into PDF files with a link to the site and put up on various Websites.

People do not like to do extra work -- that is just human nature. Simplifying the ability of the user to add the link to social bookmarking Websites like del.icio.us or digg.com is important. Placing buttons to do the same and suggesting tags is a good way to get users to bookmark and link to your site on these social bookmarking sites. In addition, it is important to gain recognition among people who own blogs. Websites that have linked to your site should be given something in return. Providing bloggers and these Websites a link on your site is a nice incentive to give you press.

In social marketing, a Website owner encourages users to spread the word across the Internet. This happens when the first Website provides good content that people are excited enough to promote and share. Social marketing often involves:

Internet users very rarely click on -- or even notice -- online advertisements anymore. They have become suspicious of paid advertisements and need an unbiased opinion from other users. This is where social marketing comes in. Social marketing capitalizes on the emotion of trust that people have in others. If a site is recommended by a person who has other good Websites of that kind, then surely people will believe the person and visit the site. Social marketing uses this human emotion to make Websites popular.

With the Internet growing in leaps and bounds and new Websites popping up every day, social marketing has become a necessity. Gaining social recognition through users is as important as getting a good search engine rank, and surprisingly the two are not very far off from each other. This is because if the site gets social recognition, then by default within time, it will gain a good search engine rank as well. Thus, social marketing is mandatory for all Websites that need and want that recognition.