Now, let’s take a look at where social media marketing meets or beats search engine marketing.
Peer Recommendations Happen with the Click of a Like
In the same report by Econsultancy mentioned earlier, they found that 75% of people in the 18 – 26 age group used recommendations on social sites in product research before making a purchase. One of the nice sides to social media is once you have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, peer recommendations will happen when someone likes your page, mentions your Twitter handle, or tags your brand name. When someone takes these actions, their connections will see them which may help your business get discovered by others with that perceived seal of approval.
Respond to Criticism in Real Time
One of the worst problems when it comes to search engine results, aside from not coming up in them at all, is having something negative come up. Online reputation management is a thriving service thanks to rip off reports, bad reviews, and other damaging articles about a business. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do to counter these in search engine results themselves.
Whenever you are presented criticism on social media, however, you will have a chance to turn those complaints into compliments by responding back to them in real time. There is a lot of great information today, including books like The Now Revolution that help businesses learn how to plan for, find, and manage real-time crises in the social media space. Knowing how to do this is essential to showing current and potential customers how much you care about everyone’s satisfaction with your business.
Buy Your Way in Front of Your Target Audience
Thanks to Facebook Advertising, StumbleUpon Ads, Promoted Tweets, and other social media advertising, businesses can put their content in front of social media audiences. This is a great way to generate traffic to your website, fans for your Facebook page, and visibility for your messages on social media platforms.