The Vast Untapped Potential of Social Network Marketing

Posted by admin on 2 March 2010

Tags: social media, social networks

Social networking is the fastest growing segment of online life, and recent studies have indicated that, in contrast to popular belief, not all social network participants are teenagers.  In fact, the most rapidly growing demographic on the social network mega site Facebook consists of adults aged from thirty four to fifty. This is that golden demographic that marketers love to reach and, currently, that demographic is massively under targeted by social marketers.  This represents an incredible opportunity for companies looking for unique and effective ways to reach new and existing customers.

Of course, it is one thing to be excited about the possibilities of social marketing, and quite another thing altogether to figure out how to best position yourself to take advantage of the opportunities that the social network space represents.    While this is still an active area of inquiry and represents an opportunity for clever marketers to come up with new and innovative ways to use this new medium, there are a couple of steps that one must take to begin building a social network presence.

The first step is to decide which social networks to target.  There are dozens of social networking sites that are commonly used, and keeping a presence on all of them is simply impossible without having a dedicated staff to update each site.  Most companies choose to target two or three of the most visible sites.  Myspace was once the king of social networking, but it has fallen in popularity with the rise of cleaner social marketing sites such as Facebook and Bebo.  Facebook is the world’s largest and most active social networking site, so it is simply a no brainer that one should establish a presence there.  

After establishing a company presence on the targeting sites, it is time to begin attracting visitors. Most social networking sites utilize some sort of mechanism for keeping contact with other users.  These are normally known as friends lists and it requires an agreement from both parties to establish a friendship link.

Some social networking sites such as Facebook allow users to establish groups dedicated to certain topics. A very effective way to utilize social networks to reach consumers is to establish a group dedicated to the niche in which your company specializes.  This allows you to identify potential targets and also represents an opportunity to present marketing messages.  

Perhaps the best way to build social networking relationship is to develop applications for the social network that members can use.  Most social networking sites provide an application programming interface which allows software developers to build applications on the site.  Of course, doing this requires the services of a computer programmer.  Many independent developers work on contract and will create a custom application for a reasonable fee.

Today’s marketers have the opportunity to massively increase the return on their online advertising budget by utilizing the unique possibilities of the burgeoning online social networking space.  By cleverly placing targeted content on public websites, it is possible to ensure that your message is not wasted on those who are not interested in your product.  Marketers who ignore the social networking revolution do so that their own peril.