The best source of marketing on the internet is social media, period.
If you're like me, then you're probably not very touchy-feely about social media.
In fact, I think I have like 20 friend requests dating back the last few years.
I don't touch my personal account ever.
But, even I, social media hater and all, have used social media to market for almost 3 years now.
In fact, Facebook was where I got my first lead and my first sale.
Truth be told, I was almost mad - now I had to market on Facebook because I had proved to myself that it works, dang it.
Today, I believe that marketing on Facebook is the most effective way to promote.
And, that's especially true for newbies just learning how to take their talents online and blog about their passion.
Here's why...
5 Benefits of Social Media Marketing 1.
We Live in a Sharing/Recommending/"Like" World Riddle me this: who are you more likely to believe about that movie that just came out, a newspaper review, or your best friend? Whose advice do you take on a good restaurant, some snooty food critic you Googled, or your brother? People have always given more value to recommendations from people they know, like, and trust.
That's one reason why Facebook is so awesome.
You can see what your close friends are doing.
You see what pages they Like, what games they're playing, and even what's on their mind (thank goodness not all Facebook users are tight-lipped like me).
Now, imagine if one customer has a good experience with you.
He Likes your Fanpage or maybe just posts on his wall that he likes your service.
All of his friends see that.
You basically just got recommended to hundreds or thousands of people.
It's not like some flyer on your car at Wal-Mart; it's coming from someone they know.
Or, let's say you create a really clever video about your topic.
It's possible that your video can go viral and get 10,000 views in a day.
Or 10 million, if it's super great.
Do you see the power that Facebook has? 2.
1 Billion Users Just on Facebook Yep, Facebook hit the billion user mark.
That's B-b-b-b-billion, with a b (courtesy of Damon on Shark Tank).
Or did you know that 1/14th of the world's population logs onto Facebook per day? Or that the users spend 10.
5 billion minutes per day on Facebook? That stat's from a few months ago, and doesn't even include mobile views.
That number's probably up to 20 b-b-b-b-billion.
In other words, you know there are millions of people on every day that could be a perfect prospect for your brand, and they spend oodles of time on the site, too.
3.
Targeted Pages Facebookers have created pages on virtually every subject imaginable.
Just for grins, I typed in dog hair and tons of pages about dog haircuts popped up.
Find some pages related to your topic, join them, and jump in the conversation.
People will notice you.
You can also post helpful links to articles you've written.
How much would a CEO pay for a list of potential customers for his particular product? These pages essentially provide you with that.
Now you just have to work it right.
4.
Create Your Own Facebook Page The more places your prospects can connect with you, the more likely they are to buy.
If you're active on Twitter, your Facebook page, and your blog, you look more professional and that you're running a legit business.
Plus, you'll always be on the mind of your prospect.
They won't be able to help but notice you, and they'll feel like they should buy your product just to get you out of their heads! Facebook pages give you another platform to send out useful content on a much more frequent basis.
Sending out 2-3 updates per day helps keep your prospect constantly interested in your brand.
5.
Avalanches of Free Traffic One of the great benefits of social media is that it's free.
But isn't paid marketing better? Paying for marketing definitely has its place, but here's why you should ALWAYS do free marketing, even if you have a billion-dollar budget: free traffic doesn't go away if you take a little break.
Social media marketing is like an avalanche.
If a little snow piles up, it's no big deal.
But, snow keeps building and building, until eventually it just won't stay put.
It collapses down the mountain in a giant flood of snow.
When you start marketing, you may not notice much in the way of traffic.
After a while, people will start to recognize you.
They'll see you everywhere, and realize that you might actually know what you're doing.
In other words, the snow starts building.
Eventually you'll be seen by so many people, and talked about so often, that you'll begin to see massive traffic.
And, you can't turn it off.
For example, my first blog that I built still gets traffic (in fact, around 6,000 unique visitors a month).
I haven't touched that site in almost 7 months at the time of writing this.
I've taken off all the opt-in forms and I'm not marketing it.
Yet, those people still keep coming because I built up that presence over time.
If you stop paying for your banner ads, or your PPC marketing, your traffic shuts off.
But, if you go on vacation, your social media traffic will still keep coming for quite a while.
Pretty awesome, right?