It used to be that the most important aspect of a website was the actual content on the page. The design of the site and everything else was meant to feature and highlight that content, since it was ultimately what sold the visitors on the products or services being offered, or which entertained and satisfied those just looking for high quality information.
While this is still true about content today, articles are no longer the only form of content that should be included on a site. The development of social media has made it possible to use regularly updated blogs, videos, and imagery, and other forms of specialized content to give a higher entertainment value to the site.
Understanding the Concept
Social marketing is a great form of brand building. Every business needs a solid brand that easily encourages word of mouth advertising (the cheapest kind to get!). If you don't have any type of recognizable brand for your business, then how are you going to make your name a lasting impression in the minds of others?
Businesses that have a brand are of course going to make it prominent in all aspects of their online presence. This includes taking full advantage of social media applications on their websites. This form of content helps establish their brand by making the site more entertaining and welcoming to their market.
Social media works toward building a brand by establishing a solid word-of-mouth type campaign. Think of all the video clips that have gone "viral" with millions of people passing around links to the original site for an extended period of time. What better word of mouth could you get than that?
The Pros and Cons
There are great ways and self-defeating ways to use social media online. Everything that is posted on your site is a direct reflection of your business, so you have to make sure that the impression given by your social media features fit well with the image you want to give out to others. If you put up something that becomes highly controversial for your market base, it could work against you.
Before you use social media in any form you should know exactly what you want to get out of it. Every aspect of the campaign should be tightly focused to getting the appropriate outcome, whether it is a widespread announcement of a new product, breaking news that will make your business more appealing to customers, or to advertise a big promotion.
Forms of Social Media
Blogs are the most commonly used form of social media and they are relatively easy to maintain over time. Streaming video on your site is also growing in popularity and is the best way to reach tons of people who will pass your link around and around. The only rule is that the video has to be high quality and should have something of entertaining value that others would want to share with their friends.
You have to have a super funny or otherwise interesting video to get the mass attention these days, but any type of video feature will give more entertainment and variety to your site.
Just like any other type of content on your site, your social media content must add value and be directly related in some manner to the subject of your site or your products. Yet, you have more freedom to be creative and use loose connections with video clips.