Social Media Marketing Services

In this era of technology, marketers have resorted to social media marketing in order to tap the market online. Social media marketing is a form of marketing through which companies use social networking platforms to perform their marketing functions. Although social media marketing seems as an advancement of internet marketing, the dynamics are quite different in terms of capturing specific markets. This form of marketing allows a company to connect directly with their target audience as compared to other forms of internet marketing such as email marketing. In addition, a product or service provider can raise their brand awareness through social media marketing. Other than raising the brand awareness and connecting with new customers, social media marketing also allows firms to create an active community around their business. The creation of such a community enables a company to interact with customers and receive feedback. Through social media marketing, the firm can reduce its marketing research costs. Firms that use this form of marketing conduct surveys by posting questionnaires on the social media platforms. This reduced the costs, which would be used in conducting the market surveys physically.

Furthermore, the firm can receive feedback at a faster rate than through conducting the physical surveys. A firm may decide to perform the social media marketing services by itself. This entails hiring a social media expert who understands how to perform marketing operations through social networks. Alternatively, a firm may decide to outsource the social media marketing services to a social media consultant. However, the functions performed by either of these service providers are similar in terms of marketing services. Hiring a social media expert to perform these functions is beneficial to the firm because he/she will understand the products and services offered by a firm thus will be in a better position to market. These functions include;

1. Developing a social media marketing strategy- this determines the services and products that the firm will market through social media. It also involves outlining the target markets and the existing opportunities.

2. Creating implementation guidelines-, it enables the firm to understand the social media landscape. It also helps a firm to understand how it can maintain the integrity of its brands.

3. Software recommendations- this applies for the internal social media-marketing assistant. This involves identifying tools, which will help in search engine optimization.

4. Social profile development- this involves determining the social networks where the firm should join.

5. Social media audit- this is a continuous process, which is conducted by the firm and social media marketer to determine the firm's presence on social networking sites. These are the key functions that a firm should perform as it joins social media for marketing purposes. It is important for a firm to understand that social media marketing is an avenue for marketing products and services in a similar manner to other forms of marketing. However, the most importantly, a firm must maintain high online presence in order to capture its target markets. Creativity will enable a firm to capture and retain new customers through social media marketing.