How important is social marketing to online marketing?

Social marketing is the process of promoting a brand through social media channels, so it is an immensely powerful strategy that gets links, attention, and generates massive amounts of traffic. There is no other low-cost promotional method that easily gives a business large numbers of visitors, some of whom are likely to return again and again, and is a potent method that will make a business profitable over time.

Some of reasons why social marketing is so important are that:

1. It is natural. Not only do you get natural links without any discernible pattern, a brand is exposed to large groups of people in a spontaneous fashion, which differs from paid advertising that has overt commercial overtones.
2. It is defensible. Social communities are a great source of traffic generation on top of any traffic already received from search engines. While you can’t easily increase search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing.
3. It is low-cost and has high returns. The benefits often exceed the cost, as it can take thousands of pounds to buy many links; whereas social marketing has the ability to give you that for free.
4. It complements other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing is usually community-specific and thus doesn’t interfere with any other methods of getting traffic, and it can fit perfectly with an advertising campaign.