There's a heavy push these days for companies to include social media as part of their overall marketing strategy--but does it really work? For businesses trying to determine if social media marketing in Snohomish WA is right for them, the answer lies in understanding the goals of social media and then determining if those goals are a match for your overall marketing strategies.

What Social Media Can Do

If you want to decide if social media works, it helps to understand what it can actually do first. Unless you are selling consumer-facing products directly on Facebook or Pinterest, social media may not directly influence your sales numbers. Instead, these influences are a bit more indirect:

• Boosting Brand Awareness. For national brands, social media is an easy way to expand your marketing reach exponentially without spending a fortune on advertising. For small or local businesses, the interactive nature of social media provides a unique opportunity to make connections with real people in your community--relationships that will lead to more business.
• Promoting ContentFrom blog posts to ebooks to webinars, content marketing is where many businesses focus their online efforts. Of course, all that content needs to be found if it's to be effective, and social media is the perfect outlet for drawing more people into engaging with your materials.
• Nudging ConversionsWhen you promote your content and products using social media, you can directly increase conversions while also funneling more leads to your sales team. For example, if you promote your monthly newsletter on Twitter, each person who signs up becomes a fresh prospect for the rest of your marketing efforts.

What Social Media Cannot Do

No social media platform will work for you on its own. While other outlets like your blog might do well on a publish-and-forget-it method, social media requires interaction to be successful. That means you must have someone who is ready to reply to comments, answer questions, and offer assistance to gripes and complaints--in real time.

For most businesses, social media is not a substitute for the marketplace. In other words, people do not want to see a bunch of posts that are nothing more than dressed-up commercials. Instead, they want to be entertained and informed. That means you must find a way to engage people with your content while also staying focused on your sales and marketing goals. Otherwise, you're just wasting time and resources collecting likes and shares that might feel great, but aren't making you any money.

The Bottom Line

So, does social media marketing in Snohomish WA work? In a word: yes. As long as you stay focused on both providing people with the information they want in a way that supports your sales goals, social media can be a great way to introduce new people to your business, draw them into your other content channels, and nudge people towards conversion activity that leads to real dollars.