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Should we use Social Media for marketing our Products?

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Social Media For Products Marketing

Social Media plays an important role in every sphere of Blogging. Bloggers promote their articles in a number of social networks in order to get traffic. Advertisers use parameters like number of twitter followers, number of Likes in a Facebook Page, etc to evaluate the blog before advertising in it.

So can’t it help you in marketing your products?

Definitely it can play an important role in marketing as well as increasing the sales of your own products or affiliate products.

Here are 6 advantages of using Social Media for marketing your products or services:

Social Media has Great Potential

The figure below shows the number of registered members (approximate) in the following social networking sites:

  1. Facebook – 800 million
  2. Twitter – 175 million
  3. Google+ – 50 million

So can you imagine the potential of these social sites?

It provides a great platform to market or promote your product. You get different kind of people in these sites and thus you can promote a number of products based on the interest of the people.

Social Media is viral in nature as well. I mean if someone finds your product interesting, he/she may “Like” it, or +1 it or tweet about it; thus you get free promotion about your product or service.

Customers can Interact with You Directly

The problem with squeeze pages or newsletter form of marketing is customers cannot interact with you directly. You may have a FAQ section for answering most of the common questions that may arise. But this is not enough. The person may have certain questions that are not listed in your FAQ. Thus, even if he/she is interested in buying the product, he/she may opt out and as a result you lose a potential customer.

Social Media can play an important part here. The person, interested in buying your product, can directly interact with you either by sending you messages or by chatting with you. At the time of conversation with the customer, you also get the chance to convince him to buy the product using your communication and marketing skills. Thus, you can clear all his doubts and convince him to buy the product.

Understand your Customer

You must try to understand the needs of the customer. You should not promote a product that your customer doesn’t like. Thus you need to interact with them to understand them properly. Social media provides you this opportunity. Try to ask them questions or start some kind of polls to understand their needs. Ask them about their interests and try to promote products based on their interests.

Target the Right Customer

You may start to sell a product that is made for women in the age group of 20 to 35 or something related to web designing or some eBook related to animals. Now if you promote it using your blog or newsletters or using a squeeze page, you are never going to get much success. Reason is your blog or email list consists of different kind of people with different age group, with different interests, etc. Some of them may not even like you promoting such products and may even unsubscribe to your newsletters or may stop visiting your blog.

Social media helps you to target the right customers for your product. You can create Facebook groups or Google+ circles with people having common interests and promote products based on those interests to them. This increases your chances of selling the products.

Use Videos to Market the Product

YouTube is ranked 3rd in terms of traffic according to Alexa. It gets millions of visitors per month. So why not use it for marketing your product. People prefer to watch a video rather than reading a review about the product. So what you can do is create a video about the product and publish it on YouTube with your affiliate link. You don’t need to create a great video. Just make sure you perfectly market your product in the video. Add some of the basic information in the video like what the product is all about, its benefits, some testimonials, special offers or discounts(if any), etc.

Use the perfect title for the video and make sure to add relevant tags to it. Once you have published it, you can share the video link in Facebook, Twitter or Google+ as well.

Learn from Your Competitors

Many of your competitors may have already started marketing their products in various social sites. Being a newbie in this area, you can learn a lot of things from them. Try to do some research like what social sites they are using, what are the methods they use, what is their success rate, etc. This way you will get a clear idea about using social media for marketing your products.

I tried to explain the advantages of Social Media for marketing your product. Hope you liked the article and benefitted from it.

Did I miss anything? If so, feel free to add it in the comments section.

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About

Sandipan Mukherjee is the owner of WPHour. He is also a Web Developer and a freelance writer for hire.

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{ 37 Responses }

  1. SeoInVogue says:
    Nice post ! In my opinion social media is most effective when you are offering a product of some kind on your website. There is a huge number of user base that is now active on social media, so it's a good bet to spend time on the strategies on how to target your customer.
  2. Rose says:
    I kind of disagree that promoting from a squeeze page produces worse results than social media - it all depends on the keyword you are targeting and whether the traffic for that keyword comes from Google. Consider a squeeze page for "blue widgets". Now you may decide that the demographic that may be interested is 20-25 and target them on Facebook or twitter or G+. But only about 1% of those you are targeting will be in the frame of mind to buy, the rest will not be interested in the product at all. Now consider people coming to your squeeze page from Google - they may be of all different ages - but importantly they are all interested in blue widgets as otherwise they wouldn't have typed that into the search engine. What is more, they have come to you, they have decided to click on your page, whereas with social media you are going to the customer, most of whom are irritated at being targeted. If your squeeze page is right you can get at least 11% to convert if the traffic comes from Google. And it's less work Just my two cents
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I did not say that promoting from a squeeze page produces worse results than social media. Squeeze pages are always better. What I said is the problem with squeeze pages or newsletter form of marketing is customers cannot interact with you directly. This can be overcome with the help of social media. In fact, if we can use both of them together, it may become a great combination.
  3. Saikrishna says:
    An absolute clean way of explanation. I love the article :) Making the article explanation in 6 ways of different areas.. Wov i liked it Thanks for sharing
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      You are welcome Sai...Thanks for the comment..
  4. Kira says:
    It is hard to work on Social Media Optimization if your product don't have a brand and that you just started. You need a lot of hardwork in it and I think your tips could help for the long run. Social media promotion is exhausted! It's like a faucet that will be on when you turn it on and off when you close it. You need to be online just to interact with your costumers. Anyway, everything has a solution. We better find the best one.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      Thanks Kira for your valuable views.
  5. Dipanjan says:
    I never thought of using Facebook or Google+ for marketing. I normally engage with my friends in these social networks. You gave a new concept to it. Maybe I will start affiliate marketing in these sites, in future, for making some money :-)
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I am glad that I gave you some new concept. All the best for making money using these sites.
      • Dipanjan says:
        Thanks Sandipan.
        • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
          You are Welcome.
  6. Asmita Baz says:
    I liked your point "Target the Right Customer". If you market all types of product to all our followers, then they will tag you as a Spammer. Social Media provides a great platform for this problem.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I am glad you liked it, Asmita. Thanks for the comment.
  7. Michael says:
    I have avoided using social media for product promotion in the past because most updates to Twitter and Facebook I see are purely promotional. That said, I had not considered the reader's ability to interact on the social networks vs a static or squeeze page. You have made me reconsider my position - Thank You!
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      Its true Michael, most of the people use it just for promotion. There must be some balance. We must interact with our followers or customers and should not just concentrate on marketing our products. Thanks for the comment.
  8. Justin says:
    "Should we use Social Media for marketing our Products?" Define we? There is plenty of useful information here, but in my humble opinion, it is time to be more careful how you word things, Sandipan. Personally, I know quite a few businesses that are growing without the use of social media, and I can also think of some instances where social media would not be appropriate. Okay, you are right, social media is a big deal, and a "long term affair." Someone notify the press. Now I'm going to read your article on adding a twitter feed to Wordpress. Kindest regards, Justin :)
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      By "WE", I meant Bloggers. However, this article is applicable for all those who has some product to offer. There may be instances where it is not appropriate. However, businesses growing without it, can use it to further increase their sales and build a strong customer base. Thanks for your advice regarding the usage of words.
  9. Ali Alidoost says:
    You should certainly create a page for each one of your products and services on awesomize.me which aggregates all of your other social media channels into one
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      Thanks for sharing your views.
  10. brett says:
    I am way too passive and introverted to do social media and more so promote myself, that is why I got a professional in like MagicBuz. WOW what a turn around! I cannot believe the different interests in my products and of course the sales. Google, Twitter, Facebook you name it I am there and I really know that it has made a vast difference. Social Media or socialviral is definitely the way to go and it is much cheaper than the traditional old advertising
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I did not have any idea about MagicBuz. Thanks for sharing it. It would come in handy for people who are finding it difficult to promote via Social Media.
      • Jonna says:
        I heard about Magic Buz actually last month and have wanted to begin working with them! We just started getting in contact with them and they are creating an original platform for us to spread the word on the internet. I hope it helps! We could use the presence!
        • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
          Sounds great, maybe I will try them in future.
  11. Angella says:
    Sandipan, i agree with your stand that we can directly deal with customers and communicate in a transparent way without being ambiguous. People, therefore, get the perfect know-how of the products through social media. In this marketing era we all know that customer is the KING!! If one is satisfied, then he is ought to bring references which is absolutely necessary for the expansion of the business.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I am glad that you agreed with my points. Thanks for the comment.
  12. Agatha Tefora says:
    I do agree. Social media has a big role in marketing products. I recently read an article for a certain hotel in New York. They are gaining sales through Google +. by posting photos on anything about New York. Their popularity has increased through this.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I am glad that you agree with me regarding the role of social media in marketing products. Thanks for giving the example about the hotel from New York.
  13. Derek Blandford says:
    I think another big advantage of social media when it comes to marketing your own products is that you can reach customers IMMEDIATELY. In other words, you can hit customers at the exact time when they are most likely to buy. For example, if you sell a "Get Your Ex Back" product and notice someone on a social media site talking about how their boyfriend or girlfriend just broke up with them, then you can immediately offer your help and expertise to that potential customer.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      You are absolutely right Derek. Through social media we can reach customers immediately. Thanks for adding this point.
  14. ioana moise says:
    Actually i am new in marketing ,possibly my question will look very stupid but i need its answer i am using these three social networks but i usually i don't receive any traffic from them is it important to get traffic from social network or is it just to show Google that your site link in these social networks.....
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      You see the potential of these three sites is huge. You get different kinds of people with different preferences in these sites. Moreover these sites are viral in nature as well. So it is better to target the people in these sites.
  15. Nishadha says:
    You should definitely use social media to market your products because the user base is just too big to ignore. But you also have to be careful that you don't promote only your stuff, it's about sharing and you should promote other good content and give away much as possible through various channels.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I totally agree with you Nishadha that we should just not concentrate on promoting our products. Thanks for the comment bro.
  16. Brian D. Hawkins says:
    I was just getting ready to put it to bed Sandipan and now I'm glad I caught this post before I did. This is the best peace I've read all day and it will definitely make my next Blogging Rounds - Best of post. Hesham wins again. lol I just went on a bit of a rant on my Facebook page about some bloggers not taking social media seriously and I started to mention using social media for product promotion. It was going too long so I decided to post a part two in a few days. I don't believe it's a good idea to use our social media accounts exclusively for product sales; it's all about balance. Without product sales, blogging may as well be an online diary. That's fine too but if we're going to blog as a business we must have something to offer. That's a great point on the lack of interaction with newsletters and lists. Blogs can pick up the slack when it comes to that but we can't do a brake job with just a screwdriver, we need to use all of the tools that it takes to get the job done <- (soon to be famous quote lol) . Again, balance. Thanks, great post and you are wise to view things so clearly.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      Its true, we should not just use it for promotion, there must be some balance. Thanks for the comment.
  17. Amir says:
    Social media has totally revolutionize the way we use to market or target our customers. Regarding, your points related to these squeeze pages, I rely on search alot and always in search of finding new info and now and then, I use to stumble on these squeeze pages. C'mon. Errrrrrr. Social media is for long term relation with your customer's, clients, well wishers.
    • Sandipan Mukherjee says:
      I completely agree with you Amir that social media is a long term affair. Thanks for the comment.