Page 33 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

Call it a shift in web behavior, but the way people make decisions in the real world
is finally moving to the Internet in a big way. The social media platforms such as
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube (shown in
Figure 1-4), are just a few of the places where people are asking each other for
advice and guidance as they make purchasing decisions. Smart companies are
realizing that they should no longer design their e-commerce websites to con-
vince buyers to make purchasing decisions in isolation. Rather, they need to
design the websites to allow consumers to bring their social influencers into the
decision-making process. As consumers, people expect and want that because
that’s how they’re used to making their purchasing decisions. That’s why social
media marketing matters today. People are influencing and are being influenced
by each other every day on the social network platforms, community websites,
and destination sites.

FIGURE 1-4:
YouTube.

You may need to put a lot of effort into convincing your managers how important
the social media platforms are. The best way to communicate these ideas and
techniques to your staff is by organizing lunch-and-learn sessions and bringing
in external speakers who can walk your managers through the major social plat-
forms and how best to market on them. Sharing case studies from other brands
always resonates well and goes a long way to establishing credibility.

CHAPTER 1 Understanding Social Media Marketing 17