Online Social Media MarketingTrish PascoeBoise, IdahoIn today's highly competitive world it has become essential for business owners to be creative with their marketing techniques. Advertising budgets that were once earmarked for yellow page advertisements have been reallocated towards online marketing. A whole new industry of online media marketing optimization has emerged. Companies like Social Media Marketing are promising and delivering results via online marketing campaigns. These campaigns utilize the free social media outlets available to anyone with a computer. Technology has been the "wave of the future" for years. Google searching has become a staple for the consumer. Regardless of industry, any business that wants to maintain its existing customer base while gaining an additional customer base must at minimum have a website. Once a business has secured a website, it is imperative that traffic is driven there. The creation and management of social media sites are the mechanism utilized to drive that traffic. The best way to target the relevant audience is by writing a blog on the company's website. A blog is not only essential in driving traffic, but it can be used to educate the reader about the company's industry. It can be further used to show some of the business owner's personality or describe charitable causes the business supports. Twitter provides the business owner the opportunity to engage their target audience in conversation. A question and answer forum can be initiated via twitter. A benefit of twitter is that the business owner can gather a community of followers who will promote the business owners brand. Twitter is a great source of marketing for upcoming events for which the business might be involved. Digg.com and Stumbleupon.com are not as mainstream as Twitter or Facebook, but they too can be a unique marketing tool. They can both be used to share posts and generate further traffic for the website. Digg allows the user to make recommendations referring to particular industries or to share certain articles with their followers. Stumbleupon offers its users a way to receive notifications regarding specific information of relevance to their particular industry or customer base. As traffic increases other free advertising can occur on the business website itself. Post videos of a topic which would interest your customers or have a well known customer post a guest blog which will be a benefit to both parties. Reward your fans or users with a competition which can provide discounted services for their business.It's happening all around you. Be a part of the free advertising that is available to you via the internet. Use the tools of online marketing to drive traffic to your site and increase the public's knowledge of your business. Don't let technology leave your business in the dust.
