Looking to get into the social media marketing bandwagon? If so, like many people you may be asking yourself if it’s really worth getting into and whether it would actually help with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts. Some may even say that it’s a complete waste of their time – or is it?
Well that generally depends on a number of things such as kind of business you are into, the kind of approach you have in mind and most importantly, how committed you are to such an endeavor. Anything you do without commitment and proper management is bound to be a waste of your time.
The same holds true with internet marketing in general if you don’t adhere to its best practices and ignore people who are looking to communicate or interact with your business.
Making Social Media Marketing Worthwhile
Social media can certainly help with your SEO efforts, but only if it’s done right. With it, your website and the content that it offers are going to be talked about, liked, shared and hopefully recommended by a lot of people across various social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ which search engines now pick up on in determining rank and authority. How exactly is this so?
What can social media do for your business?
Indeed the question remains – how does Google and other search engines determine rank and authority? Well your website can be deemed an authority in your industry with quality and useful content simply because reputable people are sharing it or simply a lot of people online are sharing it. Perhaps your website isn’t getting the attention it needs? These are all signals that search engines pick up on.
You can’t expect to rank well on search engines if you are not producing content good enough to get people to actually share and talk about it.
Another area in which social media marketing can be of great help is customer service. People are going to talk about your business whether you know it or not and regardless of whether you like or not and social networks give the opportunity for interaction enabling you to know exactly what these people are saying. Positive feed backs and reviews enable businesses to reinforce their brand while negative ones can be disastrous if ignored or left unaddressed.
Either way, all these interactions are happening so businesses might as well strive to take control of it by publishing or promoting good reviews and feed backs about their business and swiftly rectifying or responding to customer issues and complaints
Last but not least – social media marketing can actually bring you more business which makes it an excellent marketing tool. For example, let’s say that you are running a restaurant business. Many satisfied customers often take inviting photographs of their dishes and publishing it on Facebook inviting more customers to come and savor what you have to offer. It’s a fine example of how social media can directly generate more business for you.
So what do you think? Is social media marketing a complete waste of your time? If so, then you might as well say the same thing about SEO and your internet marketing campaign in general! Anything can be worth doing so long as you are committed and resolved to do it well.
