These days it seems like the whole world is obsessed with social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as blogs and Google+. So what is all the fuss about and why is social media so important to online advertising?
Getting involved with any trend will always help you to be ahead of the game especially with consumer interaction, but social media also has a number of other significant benefits for businesses of any size and description.
An effective social media advertising campaign can lead to networking opportunities, increased SEO, more website traffic and higher conversion rates, sales and profits. In fact you really can’t afford to ignore it.
We asked Kylie Tabrett, Account Manager of Go Hospitality to explain.
Kylie Tabrett is the Account Manager for GoHospitality.com.au, an online business directory servicing the Australian hospitality industry. With degrees in Hospitality, Events Management, Sales and Marketing, Kylie began her career in events management and online media sales. She has worked on national online advertising campaigns, created proposals and promotion ideas for major Australian hotels and has worked with major sponsors at industry trade shows.
Networking
It is estimated that, on average, every user of social media sites have at least 100 friends. These friends form a network of likeminded people with similar interests. If you can interest one of these people in your product or service enough to post about it or link to you on their page, blog or site, then it has potential to be viewed by an infinite number of people.
Sign up to social media sites, build a blog, create an account or a page and make your presence known. Build your own network by making friends with those in your industry, online publications and specialist online directories such as GoHospitality.com.au and, overall, give users a reason to interact with you. All these things help to advertise your website and your brand.
Increased SEO
SEO (search engine optimisation) is all about increasing traffic to your website from search engines like Google, Yahoo and ninemsn. Search engines use a sophisticated algorithm to determine how high your site ranks when users search for key words or phrases, the aim of course is to be in the top ten.
The algorithms aim to provide the user with the most useful and relevant site and take into account all sorts of factors to decide which site gets top spot. One key factor is how popular a website is. If a site has fan pages and lots of unique backlinks to it from other websites, including social media sites, it dramatically increases its chances of ranking first.
Every post, reference, share and backlink not only indicates popularity and increases SEO, but also acts as a personal recommendation of your product or service and greatly enhances your brand value.
High conversion rate
An interesting fact of leads generated by a social media advertising campaign is that it they have higher conversion rates than other forms of advertising. This is in part because links, posts and shares from within a person’s network act like a personal recommendation from a trusted third party or friend. This acts like word of mouth, which is the most effective form of advertising.
The second reason for this high conversion rate is that your product or service is generally shared between users in a network with similar interests. By reaching a user in your target market you have access to a network of people that have a particular interest in your product or service.
Going viral
The amazing thing about a social media advertising campaign is that, unlike traditional advertising, there is no limit on how long a campaign can run for. Successful advertising campaigns can build up momentum, snowballing until they go viral, being shared at an astonishing rate across infinite networks and users to reach hundreds of millions of potential customers around the world.
Many big international brands and small local companies are realising their potential through social media and so should you.
