Social media marketing is simply the utilization of various social media platforms and sites to advertise a service or product. While the terms digital advertising and e-advertising are increasingly dominant in academic circles, social media marketing has been growing in popularity for both researchers and practitioners. This rise in interest is likely due to the ease with which users can "brand" themselves via social media.

For instance, by embedding video into a blog post, academics and practitioners can build an engaging subscriber base that continues to grow as they engage their audience in real conversations. The growth of such engagement makes this type of advertising more powerful than other forms, since it creates a significant level of trust and credibility for the audience. Furthermore, social media marketing campaigns can incorporate metrics to determine how effective the advertisements are in generating interest in specific products or services. Such metrics include the number of unique visitors and the number of registered users. However, it is important to note that the key to success in these types of advertisements relies on the understanding of both the audience and the campaign as a whole.

When integrating social media marketing strategies into a campaign, it is important to carefully consider the goals of the organization and the process itself. After all, social media marketing campaigns rely heavily on the audience's response to the advertisements. While many social networks allow users to interact with one another in order to exchange opinions, concerns or even news about a product, the nature of social marketing requires that users be exposed to as much information as possible. Consequently, organizations that rely on social media to market themselves must be able to discern what types of information are useful to their target audience. While social media allows for users to develop strong relationships through their engagement with others, organizations that rely on these platforms will also need to closely monitor the reactions of their target audience and establish whether or not such relationships are productive.

In addition to the amount of advertising space required and the demographics of the audience, organizations that choose to implement managed service providers can benefit from the various tools available to track their performance. Such companies can help a company maximize its ad campaigns by helping it to analyze the performance of advertisements. These agencies typically employ an array of tools and techniques to help analyze how well ad campaigns are performing. While organizations may be able to successfully maximize ad spending on popular platforms, such as Facebook, it is likely that they will fail to make significant inroads into less popular platforms or attract new audiences. In order to make significant inroads and maintain consistent sales, organizations should utilize an agency that can help them manage their ad campaigns across a variety of platforms.

Social media marketing requires an organization to be consistent in its messaging. After all, organizations that rely on social media to market effectively will often engage in numerous ad campaigns in a day. For this reason, it is important for organizations to create and disseminate content that engages users and promotes return visits. A social media marketing agency can help organizations avoid this by ensuring that the content provides something of value to users every time they log onto their channels. This will ensure that users will continue to spread the content across a wide number of channels, which will help them generate more return visits to a business.

In addition to focusing on content, social media agencies also need to have strategies in place for selecting the right venues. Most people tend to visit the same websites when they need products or services. Therefore, if an organization has a blog or Facebook page, it is most likely that these users will also be interested in buying or engaging in other activities. In order to reach these audiences, it is necessary to build a presence on the various social networks. This strategy can be assisted by a social media agency, as the agency can build a social presence on various platforms and ensure that it is promoted on a regular basis. This helps to maintain a consistent and ongoing level of interest in a brand's offerings, and can help it to capitalize on any opportunities that arise within the social networks.