Social media marketing refers to the process of growing your business by increasing market awareness, customer engagement and sales by leveraging social media networks.
In practical terms, social media marketing focuses on creating content that attracts engagement and encourages people to share your content with their social networks.
When your business participates in social media networks, consumers are able to interact with your company. Social media networks and blogs allow individuals interacting with your company (called fans or followers depending on the social network) to “share” or “retweet” info about your company, or the product or service you are promoting. By “sharing” your message, all of the person’s “connections” are also able to see the message, thereby providing you with greater reach to additional prospects for your business.
The resulting electronic “word of mouth” refers to any content people share via online communications (e.g., social network posts, instant messages, email, blog posts, news feeds) about your business, for example, an event, a product or service, a promotional offer and so forth. When your company’s message is spread from user to user via social media it often resonates more with prospects and potential customers because it comes from a trusted source, as opposed to the company itself. In this way social media marketing results in ‘free media exposure’ rather than using ‘paid media’ marketing.
by Bruce Worrall, Apr-6-2015