Content is the king!” As I always emphasize when talking about ranking local business website to get more leads online.

Since everyone is talking about social media marketing nowadays, some local businesses ask me whether it’s important any more or whether it’s a must for a business to have its own website since social media seems to play more important role in everyday life.

Today I came across this article which I found clear out the myth about content marketing and social media marketing.

“The purpose of social media marketing generally tends to focus on two main objectives. First, it is used for brand awareness — generating activity and discussion around the brand. Secondly, it is used for customer retention/ satisfaction — brands can use social channels as an open forum for direct dialogues with customers, often around issues or questions that consumers have.

In contrast, content marketing’s website-based center of gravity enables it to focus more on demand generation. As quality content brings prospects to a brand’s site, brands can develop a relationship with the prospects and nurture them towards a lead conversion or purchase.”

So, it seems that social media marketing tends to be the natural first step in this process: Access to users is direct because obviously users spend tons of time on social networks.

But as brands become more familiar, the next step must move toward content marketing. Because in content marketing, brands must producer longer-form, higher-quality content and build audiences on their own site. But the rewards and results are, arguably, more powerful. Brands can engage more deeply with their customers through content marketing efforts. And by driving consumers to its own website, the brand has a greater opportunity to gain leads and move them down the conversion funnel.

Then social media becomes a useful channel for brands to service new and existing customers to build strong customer relationship.

That’s how social media and website play together. You can’t miss anyone of them to achieve online marketing success for your brand and business.

Original contents from DelphineZhu.com - real estate marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, app marketing, SEO and more

Social Media Addicts Association Meeting

I never thought people are addicted to Social Media before. Now I believe so. :O

Original contents from DelphineZhu.com - real estate marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, app marketing, SEO and more

Globally, the most trusted information source was friends, with 42% of those surveyed saying that they trusted word-of-mouth recommendations. About an equal number trusted TV news (41%), online news (40%) and newspapers (39%).

Naturally, there were variations in media trust from country to country, but several patterns emerged.

Internet users in the US and Canada held similar attitudes toward the media, with the largest differences in the US’s comparative lack of trust in newspapers and TV news.

Most trusted media news

Surprisingly to me that, Wikipedia, despite being among the most highly visited Websites worldwide, was less trusted among the countries surveyed than industry magazines, industry Websites and product comparison sites.

Original contents from DelphineZhu.com - real estate marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, app marketing, SEO and more

Social media marketing consists of campaigns of multiple online marketing methods. Sometimes it is called web 3.0 marketing technology, which is more about a personal dialogue with offers that are so relevant that users feel special. Web 3.0 is about using all the Web 2.0 data, messages, chatter etc. to make business run smarter (=more personal and relevant). Companies that will achieve this will get to a deeper level of communication with their relations, a domain where you’re found before you’re searched for.

social media marketing diagram

To achieve this another model needs to be created, one that is aimed at long durable social relationships instead of one that is focused on conversion. However conversion or sale will happen simply because people like to do business with people they know, like and trust.

But you have to understand what social media can and can’t do.

Social media can engage your audience, encourage online conversations that are user-generated, increase your web presence, expand brand awareness, generate publicity (both good & bad) and provide SEO benefits.

For most marketers, social media has no ROI  but is great for:

• Brand building
• Relationship management
• Product development
• Reputation management
• Customer interaction
• Customer feedback
• Customer support
• Community building

In some cases, social media can convert – usually if you own the community, and have the power to strategically capture leads. Contact your local social media expert.

Original contents from DelphineZhu.com - real estate marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, app marketing, SEO and more

Based on analysis of use of a content-sharing widget, more people use Facebook to share links than any other service, including e-mail.

According to AddToAny, creators of content-sharing and Web publishing tools, including a popular social media widget, Facebook accounts for 24% of uses of the widget to share links to articles, videos and other content, trumping e-mail at 11.1%.

As of July 2009, Top 5 social media widgets (% share):

1. Facebook 24%
2. Email 11.1%
3. Twitter 10.8%
4. Yahoo Bookmark 5.5%
5. Myspace 5%

In a recent survey, large majorities rated social media marketing effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness and improving search rankings and site traffic. Social media was considered less effective, but still good, for internal communications and driving online sales.

Marketers thought the best specific tactics were user reviews, relationships with bloggers and discussion groups through social media marketing.

What is social media marketing?

Original contents from DelphineZhu.com - real estate marketing, social media marketing, mobile marketing, app marketing, SEO and more