A Social Media Marketer partners with small businesses and individuals to help them grow their customer base, increase their sales, gain better customer and brand visibility and help create and maintain superior online marketing strategies.

Social Media Marketer (noun): An online cheerleader that helps foster brand recognition, creates a customer buzz and builds a positive reputation for you or your company through various social media channels (i.
e.
, Facebook, Twitter, You-Tube, Blogs, etc.
).

Back in the days when the Internet first started, people and businesses wondered why they needed a website and online presence at all.
After all, only scientists and computer geeks were online and THEY weren't their target audience.
Eventually (actually WAY faster than "eventually"), people realized that having a website that advertsied their products was a good thing and websites quickly became an essential marketing tool.
As the web grew, and more and more people were online, websites needed to provide MORE.
They needed to be interactive, they needed to allow a consumer, client or a "fan" (this is now a KEY idea) to get information from or ask for support from the company's online presence.
Now, let's move forward about 15 years.
Suddenly texting and Twitter and Facebook have entered the online arena, and Web 2.
0 development began.
Blogs (Weblogs) started popping up everywhere.
Although Social Media began with the younger, "hipper", more social set it has grown exponentially year after year.
To be quite honest, my friend, we are at the beginning of the next Web gold rush.
No longer can a static website that requires a person to find YOU do the marketing job of the past.
The Yellow Pages are dead.
The newspaper print subscriptions are dying.
There is SO much going on online that is APART from surfing that JUST having a website simply will NOT do it for you or your company anymore.
At this point MOST people are checking their email, logging onto Facebook, reading their RSS Feed subscriptions and/or following people on Twitter.
They are looking at You-Tube for fun or informative videos and sharing their links on Delicious (a social bookmarking site).
If Facebook were a country it would be the SECOND largest country in the WORLD.
Now that's a WHOLE LOTTA traffic! So why does this matter to you? Because NOW you NEED to create a BUZZ online.
You want to keep you and your business on the top of people's minds.
You need to market on a more personal or social level.
AND you need to figure out HOW to get yourself set up, you need to MAINTAIN your social sites and you need to keep your sites from becoming static and stale.
A Social Media Marketer can help you figure out WHO your target audience is and WHERE your audience hangs out online.
They will also help you figure out WHAT the best way to market to them is, through WHICH social networks and WHEN you should be sending out your updates for maximum impact.