Need a reason as to why your business should jump on the social media marketing band wagon? Well look no further and hopefully you might be able to squeeze yourself onto this cyber equivalent of London underground. <--more--> Here to give us the low down on social media marketing, is none other than our very own Adrian Niculescu…

Socialexaminer.com conducted a study this year on the benefits of social media marketing among a significant number of online marketers.

The conclusion?

Amazingly, 85% of them gained more exposure for their business, followed by increasing traffic to the website promoted (63%). 56% revealed the fact that social media activity brought them new business partnerships, 54% were helped by social media to increase the rise in the search rankings, 52% generated qualified leads, 48% sold more products/ services and 48% had savings in the overall marketing budget.

Social media is certainly not to be seen as a form of advertising on the cheap. It is an effective way to create communities and add weight to your presence as a person not just another faceless business. Whichever way it is looked at the main purpose is to make regular contributions to that community and eventually gain trust from potential consumers about your brand.

You can contribute through text, links, images, videos and everything which will help that community evolve and grow. Selling, gaining new partnerships and the money earned as a result through social media, is just a reflection of the quality of your social media presence.

It cannot be stressed enough that your aim is not sell sell and sell some more, it is more about building up your brand after all you wouldn’t buy from someone who knocks at your door and without introduction begins to reel off their best selling spiel. If this suggestion is ignored, then it will be at your own risk as after one too many sale posts you will find that you have been pushed out of loop. Therefore, it is recommended to have no more than one sales related post to every ten content based ones, this way you cannot be accused of just being there to sell and you are more likely to be engaged by potential consumers of your product.

It is best to remember that all of us have something to sell and from how you manage NOT to sell in social media can have far more positive results

Now about regular social media activity and the advertising side…

If we look at the paid adverts inside of social media, they are designed with a purpose, to bring in qualified leads and and customers.Therefore special attention must be paid to how an advert is designed as with the example of Facebook, a user can ‘like’ an advert. In this instance if a user clicks ‘like’ on a paid ad in provides you a type of lead as the user accepts that you want to sell to them, where you go from there is down to you…