What is Social Marketing and Why Is It Such a Big Deal?

Where do we start? Let's start with Social Marketing in general, and where this whole journey started for me.

When I was in college, I remember hearing that Facebook was THE in thing. I knew Facebook was cool, but what I didn’t know or understand was HOW it was going to be useful in the workplace … who’s going to post info at the job, what are you going to talk about, who will be your friends? Now that I am in that workplace and facing those questions, I knew I couldn't just dive face first into this world. I needed to get some of my questions answered so I could begin to understand just what the purpose was for Social Marketing.

So, I went to Wikipedia to see what they had to say. They described Social Marketing as "the systematic application of marketing along with the concepts and techniques to achieve specific behavioral goals for a social good." Ok, so now we’ve got a definition … now what?

Next is looking at the pieces that make up this puzzle of Social Marketing—Social Media and Social Networks. Let's start with understanding what Social Media is so that we can identify how we will be using these elements to market ourselves. Check out this YouTube Video by commoncraft.com. This is a great representation of Social Media today.


And lastly, it's important to understand Social Networks and which networks we may find value in. There are so many avenues to explore, but I found a useful site called SocialList.net to help in my quest. This is a site that gives you a running list of all the different social networks that are out there, some you’ve heard of and are very main stream, however, some you may not have ever noticed and some offer that much needed nitch that may be of use for your particular business/service.

So, now that we know a little more about Social Marketing and the elements that make it up, we can begin to make use of them and dive into this new world a little more prepared.

Blog Post By:
Meghan Harrison, Social Media Strategist
meghan@peak7.com
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