Social Media
Website marketing has been evolving a lot over the 20 odd years that it has been relevant, and the two main parts of these, which have been constant throughout this period, are email marketing and search engine optimisation. Social media when compared to these two segments of the current digital marketing environment is pretty new, but it also provides a unique value for businesses.
Having a social media account has become incredibly important over the last five years. These accounts compliment search engine optimisation campaigns by working as an added source of authority, but they also act as an important business validator for potential customers and as a way to create a buzz around your business, products and services.
Many businesses have actually grown in a world where social media is a valid business marketing tool, with social media serving as their principle source of new customers. Companies with already established marketing campaigns can find it difficult to redefine their strategies to account for social media, finding it tricky to develop a significant presence on social media, but when businesses have managed this successfully they can see massive increases in business, and particularly in the value of their brand.
Other forms of web marketing are pretty effective at selling products, but when you compare them to social media, no other channels which are so accessible for the common business are as good at helping them with brand development and recognition. As it is one of the few forms of web marketing which can actually be promoted primarily by word of mouth, it is pretty easy to understand why this is the case.
Another thing which is often overlooked when discussing starting a social media campaign is advertisements. These are available on the vast majority of social media platforms, and facebook ads have actually been shown to be a very effective form of advertisement. The value of them is due in particular to how precise you can make your ads; because so much personal information is broadcast and discussed via facebook, you are able to refine your ad display parameters beyond anything offered on other ad networks, such as google pay-per-click ads.