Social Media Marketing Mastery: Increase Your Website Traffic, Grow Your Business, and Earn More Money William Hargis Author

Social Media Marketing - the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media marketing programs usually work to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it across their social networks. The resulting ’electronic word of mouth’ refers to any statement consumers share via the Internet (e.g., web sites, social networks, instant messages, news feeds) about an event, product, service, brand or company. When the message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself, this form of marketing results in ’earned’ media rather than ‘paid’ media. There are 2 approaches to SMM, the Passive Approach where social media can be a useful source of market information. Social media has become an inexpensive source of market intelligence which can be used by marketers to track problems and market opportunities. This can be extremely useful in a highly dynamic market structure in which we now live in. And, the Active Approach where social media can be used as a public relations and direct marketing tool. There are several examples of firms initiating some form of online dialog with the public to foster relations with customers.