A Brief Overview of Online Marketing and Social Media, and Why You Need Them

You may not know, but probably do know, that around 1995 the Internet suddenly became this amazing resource for information. The history of the Internet is well beyond the scope of this post however, and is only stated here to bring to light one thing, I was there. In 1995 I was learning to code HTML in college. I was learning how much of a pain it was to code for cross browser compatibility. I saw the birth of CSS 1 specification in an attempt to resolve these browser issues. I witnessed the then wonder of animated gifs becoming all the rage, along with mouse over JavaScript buttons. I was there learning how to squeeze my portfolio on a diskette, still widely and erroneously called a floppy disk, impressing my peers and even my professor. (Fitting my graphic designs, 3D logos, and a web browser to present my portfolio in a unique multimedia solution, all on a portable storage device that was even small for its day was not at all an easy task back then!)

Flash forward; as I’m sure you’re well aware, marketing your business is not the same now as it was 10 years ago, and certainly not what it was 16 years ago. Yelp is the new Yellow Pages, Google is the new Thomas Guide (among other things), YouTube is the new community access cable network, your website is your new business card and sales brochure, and social media is your new marketing campaign. Of course the lines aren’t this clearly defined, but you get the point; the bulk of today’s business environments lie primarily online, not in paper publications, and not even via television broadcasting. This is especially true for small businesses. If you’re not effective at marketing your business online, it’s nearly a sure bet your business will fail.

While online business marketing is becoming increasingly important, social media is quickly becoming the catalyst, and foundation, for online marketing. Once nothing much more than chatting with your friends and family, now using, and mastering, social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many others, is paramount to success in today’s business environments.

Here’s why, social media is your global water cooler. Ten years ago, buzz around the best new product was limited. Generating buzz around one’s products or services has been a staple to marketing for years, yet before the modernization of the Internet, it was quite difficult and expensive to generate. (Read why you need to have a website). Now all the rage is making viral content; something that gets everyone around the world watching and telling their friends. What makes this type of thing possible is social media. I won’t go into the psychological reasons why social media works; what’s most important to you is how to get started with it and how to make it work for you.

You need buzz. You need people thinking of you and your products and/or services when they want what you provide. If they look for you using an Internet search engine, they need to find you. If they hear a friend might need what you offer, they need to think of you. This is what social media helps with. Search engine optimization is passive. While vital, search engines aren’t going to spread your message around the Internet. Even if you’ve effectively optimized your website to hit the top of what your market is searching for, and even if you have ads all over the Internet, no search engine or website will broadcast your message to people who aren’t necessarily looking for you.

Social media however is an active advertising medium. Think of social media like a town crier, and a search engine like a newspaper stand. The town crier is ringing his bell, shouting out your name, drawing attention to his message. A  search engine however is sitting off to the side, waiting for someone to look for your name, which might be on the cover page, but is more likely buried somewhere deep within someone else’s magazine.

Social media therefore is a form of direct marketing; you are pitching yourself to your audience. What makes social media exponentially powerful is the fact that the more people you have “following” you on twitter, or “liking” or “recommending” you on Facebook, or adding you to their circle in Google+, or “subscribing” to your blog, no matter what the term is, all of these terms mean the same thing; you have friends who have friends who also have friends. When you have friends that actually care about what you have to say, the reach of your message has true global potential. This is what makes social media such a fantastic marketing tool. This is why there’s so much buzz regarding social media.

Hopefully now you know why you need to be using social media. If you want people to know what you’re doing, where you’re going, what you’re selling, or what you’re providing, social media, more than any other resource at your disposal, is something you need to be using.

If you’ve read this far, you likely need some help getting started, or you may need help improving what you’ve already started. Stay tuned for more information! Subscribe to this blog, send me an email, or follow me via Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, you know I’M using social media!

I would also love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to post any questions here, or provide more insight that I may have left out.

Thanks for reading!