>The New Dream Team: Blending SMM and Standard Web Marketing for Better Results

>No, you don’t have to decide between Social Media and traditional marketing as you a set the goals for your 2011 marketing budget.

Statistics show that this is the year Social Media Marketing is expected to go main stream for a majority of businesses, yet many businesses have been wary of making it a substantial part of their marketing strategy. Now that the waters have been tested by other companies (with positive results), it’s time to take advantage of what Social Media Marketing (SMM) can do for your business.
Before the application of SMM for businesses, your options for advertising were banner and ppc ads, email marketing campaigns and newsletters, and a company website optimized for the web. These are still very good marketing tools that you should consider as part of your overall marketing strategy, but they do lack a certain element. When you introduce a personal, community-oriented element like Social Media Marketing offers to your tradtional marketing plan, you allow yourself to build stronger, personalized relationships with your potential clients.

From research to lead generation, Social Media Marketing offers companies a multitude of tools and avenues to grow their business.

• You can study consumer activity – Unlike standard web marketing strategies, you can get more accurate and direct customer commentary through Social Media Marketing campaigns. You’re able to observe trends in customer responses as well as their behaviors and expectations of your business. This will allow you to have a better understanding of where to concentrate your efforts.
• You can create a strong online presence – This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to take part in every social networking community, forum, and Flickr group. You never want to stretch yourself thin – the key to effective SMM id quality interaction, not quantity. Your focus should be on an outlet where there is the potential for the largest amount of brand growth.
• You can personify your company – Showing your company is run by real people allows the public to relate better to you and your business.

Your business’s marketing success isn’t based solely on SMM or even standard web marketing alone; the social element is one part of an overall integrated strategy. As an example, combining a strategy such as email marketing and SMM work well together to generate business leads. Let’s face it—no one likes being bombarded with weekly or even daily email blasts, and after a while it starts to feel like a cold approach of communication.

One strategy to successfully blend email marketing and SMM would be sending a monthly newsletter in which you mention and link to your Facebook or Twitter profile as an option to check in daily or weekly for additional news and updates, if the recipients so desire. In this day of constant and instantaneous information, customers like to have options of the info they receive or read. When combining marketing strategies this way, and yes, it must be said again…be sure your posted content is noteworthy and has substance. Viable content and the consistent monitoring of responses to it are key success drivers when using SMM combined with standard web marketing.

Take your marketing to the social level and become an information source to your target market by blending traditional and Social Media Marketing tools. The extra effort you put into building successful online business relationships via SMM vehicles could be the difference in the success or failure of your next marketing launch.