You may ask yourself if you should bother researching social media as a marketing channel for your business or website? Ultimately, you could continue with link exchanges, search advertising or the purchase of banner and editorial ads on suitable sites.

There are some very good reasons why you should consider using social media:

For one, it’s natural. Not only do you get consistent links with no distiguishable pattern, your website is displayed to large groups of people in a impulsive fashion. This contrasts from paid advertising which has overt commercial overtones.

Secondly it’s managable. Once favorably mastered, social communities can be an excellent source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are currently receiving from search engines. While you can’t effortlessly increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily managed through strategic marketing.

It has low cost and high returns. If created by yourself, costs are limited only to time and perhaps the expenses involved in employing a freelance programmer/designer. The benefits will often outweigh the cost. It would cost you thousands of dollars to purchase many links; social media has the capability to give you that for free.

Finally, it integrates with other efforts. Social media optimization and marketing are generally community-specific. They don’t interfere with any other means of driving traffic to your website. It can and will fit flawlessly with an advertising campaign targeting other websites or search engines.