I recently had an interesting conversation with a friend on how marketing is shifting from the traditional advertisement models using radio and TV, to the more efficient and effective way of increasing “word of mouth” using the modern online tools to establish an effective social network for marketing. Basically internet marketing should aim to construct a presence using as many outlets as possible to increase the chance of people finding your content via their social media outlet of their choice. This is called “social media engagement” and it’s quickly becoming the most important tool for marketing and the distribution of content.
It works something like this. Let’s say a business or a film wants to reach their audiences more effectively. The first step would be to have a main landing page using a website such as wordpress.com or their own website. The main objective is always going to be to increase conversion rates by subscribing to the page or buying a product offered online. This is going to be the center of our spider-man web. The way to expand our web’s reach will be by surrounding the main page with the other media social outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, linkedIn and so on and so forth. Individually any of these will hit a plateau where growth will slow down or come to a halt. However, together they become a powerful sticky web that your target audience will reach your content no matter what social media outlet they choose.
A second phase would be to retain your followers by constantly engaging them with content in all social media outlets. This can be done by tailoring specific content to each social media platform or integrating them in a way that by posting content in one outlet the rest will automatically re-post the same content via applications; that allow them to access the content information, e.g. Facebook connecting with Twitter and Linkedin.
The third and final phase would be to convert followers to clients by leading them to take action and buy your product. If you have been successful engaging the audience they will be more committed emotionally and would easily take this last step. Of course only a percent of followers will translate into conversions at the end. That is why the broader your social media web is, the more followers you will attract and the higher the percent of conversions. This is the new marketing model and both filmmakers and entrepreneurs should be very aware and jump on the bandwagon as soon as possible.
