What is Social Media and Why Should a Small Business Owner Care?

May 3, 2008

When I say that I do social media marketing, it seems that business owners either get it immediately or think that I just sit online all day chatting with teenagers and college kids on facebook and MySpace. The truth though is that the social media world is much greater than just Facebook & MySpace and it is certainly much more diverse than just kids.

What is Social Media?

Social Media refers to a variety of media ranging from blogs (like this one) to social networks (like Facebook), as well as video sharing sites (like YouTube), photo sharing sites (like Flickr), as well as any online destination where content is created by the users, rather than from a top-down traditional structure. Two great examples of this are Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing refers to a form of Internet Marketing that focuses on building your brand and interacting with your customers and potential customers in a social media environment. This includes methods such as sharing tips related to your area of expertise via blogging, developing a viral video campaign, or creating a Facebook page or group for your fans to discuss your brand / products.

Social Media Marketing can also mean directly interacting with your market by answering questions on Yahoo Answers, or posting a chat system on your website to answer questions from visitors to your website.

Who Participates in Social Media?

The short answer is that everyone does! Just one example to prove the reach of social media is that Facebook has more than 50 million users as of November 2007! That is way beyond just kids.

Other sites, like YouTube and Flickr have a much broader audience, including baby-boom generation and even seniors.

There are even social networks designed for specific niche markets such as Eons (50+) and Dogster (dog owners).

Posted in Social Media Marketing