Mind about a book: “Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook”

I read "Friends with Benefits: A Social Media Marketing Handbook" because it could be very useful to know why companies can profit from this marketing channel and therefore be able to use it ourselves for our project with Raisio. 

Social media marketing is using social media channels to promote a company and its products. This type of marketing is a subset of the company’s online marketing activities, combining traditional web-based promotional strategies like email newsletters and online advertising campaigns. Social media marketing qualifies as a form of viral or word-of-mouth marketing. Viral marketing is a marketing strategy which focuses on spreading information and opinions about a product or service from person to person by using the internet. So if I tell my sister about a restaurant I really like, only she hears about it. Maybe she tells her boyfriend or some friend about that restaurant, but my opinion doesn’t spread further than that and it moves slowly. But if I have a restaurant review podcast with 500 listeners, my opinion spreads much fasters and reaches many people. If a company is already taking advantage of marketing actions like trade shows, media relations, direct mail, and telemarketing, trying social media marketing is a logical addition to the marketing tactics. The primary goal of every social media marketing campaign should be a stronger web presence. Concrete metrics for an increased online visibility are: more visitors and more incoming links to the company’s website, better search engine optimization and an improved Google ranking. I think it is obvious that social media marketing is a useful instrument for a company to attract potential customers. But new site visitors are not buying customers yet. So a company needs to have a strategy how to convert the visitors into customers. 

If we decide to use social media for our project, we need to figure out a strategy to get these new site visitors to buy Raisio's products. I'm looking forward to  Kunstenniemi and then finally be able to present all we have figured out during the last few weeks :)

//Marie-Sophie