Page 17 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Introduction

ocial media has transformed the Internet and society as a whole. It has
impacted global revolutions, elections, and the way we communicate on a
Sdaily basis. Social media also presents unique marketing opportunities that
force marketers to revisit the core guiding principles of marketing while providing
new ways to reach social influencers, thereby encouraging people to influence
each other and do the marketing for the brand. Social media marketing (SMM)
forces companies to rethink how they market online, whom they market to, and
how to structure their own organizations to support these new marketing
opportunities. For anyone involved with social media marketing — and Internet
marketing, more broadly — this is indeed an exciting time.

Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 4th Edition, is written to help you make sense of
the madness. Because it’s such a hot topic, the press and the experts alike are quick
to frighten marketers like you and introduce new terminology that confuses rather
than enlightens. This book cuts through all that noise and simply explains what
social media marketing is and how you can harness it to achieve your objectives as
a marketer. It also aims to help you prioritize what’s important and what isn’t.

About This Book

The social media marketing space changes rapidly, so by the very definition of
social media marketing, this book can’t be completely comprehensive. It does,
however, aim to distill the core concepts, trends, tips, and recommendations
down to bite-sized, easy-to-digest nuggets. As social media marketing touches
all parts of marketing and all parts of the Internet, too (from traditional websites
to social platforms to the mobile web), based on your own experiences, you’ll find
some sections more valuable than others.

As you read this book, keep in mind that the way people influence each other
online and impact purchasing and brand affinity decisions is similar to the way
they’ve done for thousands of years in the real world. The technology is finally
catching up, and social media marketing is fundamentally about allowing and
encouraging that behavior to happen in a brand-positive manner online, too.

Introduction 1