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Because of the phenomenon of globalisation, companies are using different strategies to promote their products and services. Social media has a vital role to play, especially in developing countries where internet users are growing at an exponential rate. This presents an amazing opportunity for multinational companies, some of which have already penetrated into such emerging markets. Social media is the weapon of choice for most companies.

Why Social Media Marketing is a Better Option

Social media marketing is radically different from all other forms of conventional marketing strategies and offers three distinct advantages.

• Providing a window to marketers for presenting products and services to customers, focusing on customer grievances and implementing suggestions simultaneously.
• It helps marketers to identify certain influencers and peer groups who in turn can serve as brand evangelists. This contributes towards the overall organic growth of a brand.
• As compared to conventional customer outreach programs, the costs involved are almost negligible. This is because most social media forums are free.

Thus, from an Indian context, social media marketing can provide the following benefits to small and large scale enterprises. Some of them are listed below:

• Increases website traffic and subscribers
• Search engine rankings are boosted
• Allows for developing new business partnerships
• Generating more number of qualified leads
• Overall marketing expenses are greatly reduced while creating more exposure

Companies in the West have already started investing in building customer centric relationships with social media playing a vital role.

How Social Media Is Used as A Tool

Social media has become an almost ingrained aspect of national defence strategies, public policy, public relations and political campaigns, so it makes sense to use it to an advantage as far as marketing is concerned. Since informing consumers about a company’s product and services is a major task of advertising, social media comes as a handy solution.

In layman’s terms, social media plays the following role in social media marketing

• It can be used by marketers to associate the brand with peers serving in the same target market.
• It can be used as a communication tool, providing the necessary interaction with customers
• It contributes greatly towards building a brand value
• It helps in increasing awareness, exposing untapped customer bases to the company’s brand and what they have to offer.

Reasons Why Businesses Need to Consider Social Media Marketing

• Size of reach: Facebook, which is one of the leading social media forums has over 250 active users worldwide. The enormity that social media presents can be effectively used by marketing companies to target the required people. However, it is advised to hire a professional as the risk margin is very high.
• Transparency: Social media displays the highest degree of transparency as compared to all other methods. Marketers cannot fake traffic volumes or the number of visitors to a site.

Final Thoughts:

India has an excess of 71 million active internet users, with the number increasing at an exponential rate. With social media’s growing influence on the population, social media marketing has emerged as the major force in marketing. Already industry leaders such as MTV India, Channel V, Tata etc. have hoped on-board the social media wagon.

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