As social media marketing continues to grow in popularity online, it has managed to capture the attention of the offline community as well. In many boardrooms, social marketing is being considered more seriously as part of the overall marketing strategy.
The phenomenal success that this type of internet advertising has achieved is hard to dispute or ignore.
Today’s marketing strategies still find ‘mainstream’ advertising approaches being used, such as television, radio and print. However, with profitable and highly effective online social media channels, these ‘mainstream’ offline methods are quickly becoming outdated. The only hurdle that new online strategies now seem to face for offline application is good old fashioned management skepticism.
This is what can probably be expected in the not too distant future regarding the adaptation of the offline trading community to online marketing strategies.
Offline Marketing Budgets Today
At present, there is little evidence of significant spending by the mainstream offline business community on any type of Internet advertising. However, it is inevitable that the effectiveness and profitability of online marketing in this area will soon be recognized.
Witnessing the recent failures of many long-standing business giants due in part to their own marketing inefficiencies will only serve as a wake-up call to the rest of the business community. The aftermath of the recent economic downturn will only result in an accelerated shift in marketing strategies towards the most effective and efficient avenues available online.
Increase in online spending
As offline businesses begin to shift their advertising spend towards the internet, social marketing will receive a lot of attention due to the viral nature of this particular method.
Online marketing differs from traditional methods in that the consumer seeks information on their own rather than being presented with it. That being said, there is a need for content, and a lot of it, and the marketer must provide it to meet this need. This is crucial to the relationship building that is required for this type of online marketing approach to work.
An online specialist will be hired
Whether in video, audio or text, the content provided will inform, entertain and provoke thought in an effort to capture the attention and loyalty of the online viewer.
Sooner rather than later, content development specialists will have to be added to the staff of offline companies involved in online social marketing.
The ad copy and other messages created will be designed to capture the attention of viewers, initiate and sustain interest, build trust and loyalty, and make product offers. This type of internet advertising relies more on ‘relationship marketing’ than the ‘hard sell techniques’ associated with conventional offline marketing.
The need for public relations will decrease
Now that there is more emphasis on finding breaking news on the Internet, there will be less need for conventional public relations tactics to ‘raise awareness’. Content developed and delivered to the Internet will more than fill this gap, resulting in cost savings and increased communication efficiency.
Online marketing research will be emphasized
By utilizing the give and take capabilities of web 2.0 marketing techniques, the ability to gain valuable customer feedback can be easily achieved. This cost-effective and highly efficient means of collecting valuable information online will be a very significant benefit for research and development.
As a result, offline efforts to collect similar data will be deemphasized and now considered more cumbersome due to the cost and effort required.
Social media marketing, as it stands today, continues to demonstrate new efficiencies that increase the effectiveness of online consumer communication. Its popularity and acceptance can no longer be written off as a short-term phase, but instead must be recognized for what it is, the evolution of consumer marketing. This will result in greater acceptance of the use of online social networking as a permanent fixture in a company’s overall marketing strategy.