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by Rajen Kumar

No Escaping Social Media

Running a magazine concentrating on issues of small and medium enterprises and managing with limited resources is a like living life on the edge. In this rush of meeting deadlines,...

Special Reports

Apr 2012

EMRC, Brussels Associates with SME WORLD as its New Media Partner

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Marketing

Social Media Marketing – Cost Effective Branding Tool

SME WORLD Bureau
Oct 2010

With changing times, especially in the business context a lot has changed the way companies look at branding and marketing their products/services to reach wider target customers. There was a time when the shelf life of a brand used to be longer with a select few options for branding medium and the effectiveness of the brand propagation itself. But with the internet revolution and the fast changes happening in the technology world itself things are rapidly changing. Today with the emergence of digital media as a new tool for branding where one can be directly and virtually reached on ones palm, a lot has become easier and at the same time difficult.

For instance let's talk about utilizing social media as an effective medium in branding and marketing and will it really benefit the brand that we are trying to build. Social media has become an effective tool for today's marketing and branding people to reach masses and enable organizations grow. Gone are the days when an online presence of a company through only a website was imperative. Now is the era of the fast paced new technological evolution where not only a website presence is imperative but its social media presence enables organizations to build stronger brand images.

Social Media is like an investment and organizations need to look at it as a very long term commitment. There needs to be a definite plan of action, because what organizations will do today will leave footprints on the internet that will enables them to reap positive fruits going ahead. On the other hand if it's not used wisely then its effectiveness will fade away as a dead investment. Social Media requires focus, planning, adherence to plan, continuity, consistency and freshness in concept and creativity.

A social Media effort like any other marketing effort requires effective monitoring and managing of activities. It should be accountable and measured at regular intervals to get maximum Return on Investments (ROI) of the time and effort spent by any organization. Social Media efforts are an extension of the brand's overall marketing efforts and it's just like any other aspect of marketing like offline advertising [print, television, radio, outdoors hoardings, banners etc]. Various software tools and networks allow the generation of user content and it is this revolution that is shaping the next generation of web, TV, mobile, enterprise, PR, marketing communications, brand engagement and every industry sector. Social Media needs Search Engine Optimization Management (SEO) and the main reason to work on SEO while managing and handling Social Media is to highlight the organizations brand on the search engines like Google and other search engines. It activates the organizations home page ranking and the higher your page rank the more plausible is good ranking known as chronologically high ranking on the search engines.

Social Media strategies which can enable an organization to achieve its Brand's objectives are as below:

►Networking on Social Network sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, etc

►Online Community Management

►Article Writing / Blogging

►Trade portals / B2B websites.

►Press Release and announcements.

►Submission To Search Engines, Articles Sites, Directories For Sites, Blogs

Linking your website with these above social networking sites and vice – versa.

All these should be done keeping Search Engine Optimization SEO in focus and this could benefit your brand and company in many ways.

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