Social media marketing is moving from its exciting adolescent phase to a more mature grownup status.

Online social media obsession driven by social web hormones and testosterone that drove social networks to hyperactivity are being replaced by tried and now proven activities and mature business processes. Digital marketing responsibility is now in the driving seat.

The dreaded phrase “what is the return on investment” is now seen as a conversation that needs to happen.

The dinner party conversations are no longer about Facebook or Twitter. An announcement about Instagram providing 15 second videos barely makes a ripple in the blogosphere. Social media is now part of the woodwork and is embedded in the web.

The after work and cocktail bar chats are now about when you are commencing a start up, designing your online store or launching an app.

Sexy to staid

Despite its move from sexy to staid and impending “ho hum” status, social media is embedded and integrated into almost all digital and even traditional marketing activities.

Learning to use social media effectively is now essential and required if you aren’t going to be “disrupted” by your competitors and fast growing start-ups.

So let’s look at it in context in the digital marketing ecosystem, consider core essentials and tips and tactics. These will help you get started and also optimize your current social media marketing activities.

Earned and paid

The initial attraction of social media beyond connection and engagement was that is was “free”. Social networks allowed anyone to publish and market for free with ease.

Search engines also provide this advantage and being found on Google can be done two ways.

Earned search

Earn the right to appear on page one of a search engine with optimized content and search engine optimization and it can make a large difference to your sales and inquiries. The clicks from earned search sits at around 75% of all search engine result page clicks.

This is called organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Paid Search

Now let’s quickly cover how to pay for appearing on the first page of Google

Google AdWords allows you to accelerate your brand discovery and click-throughs by paying to appear on page one for selected keywords and phrases. Stop the campaign and the traffic no longer turns up to your website or landing page.

It all comes down to measuring whether paying produces a positive return on investment. Spend a dollar and get a profit of two dollars means that it is an activity worth pursuing despite the cost.

Social media marketing is following the same route.

Read more at http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/07/29/social-media-marketing-tool-box-62-tips-and-tactics/#LfJf7urcf0Ejgkvt.99 

Social Media Marketing Tool Box: 62 Tips – Jeffbullas’s Blog.