Online Marketing: How in control are you?

When we sit down for a face-to-face meeting we know one of two things are going to take place. We are either going to sell the client on doing business or be sold on why we are not doing business. You are in control when you are the one doing the selling and out of control when you are the one being sold. These principles hold true when it comes to online marketing, highlighting why social media is vital to your marketing campaign. Search engine optimization (SEO) and online advertising are important to each marketing campaign. Sure, you've got traffic and your statistics look good this month but does that mean you are truly in control? The answer is no because you need a prospective client to type in your keywords, follow through by clicking on your company name on the search results page, and then not only locate but also respond to your desired call to action. These are just three steps where you are waiting for action to happen - a classic case of reactive marketing. Social media enables proactive marketing by driving traffic to the desired pages/links you share. Using social media gives you more control by eliminating two of the three actions within the search process. An existing client does not have to search for you daily or choose your company over the others to get company or product updates because they already follow you via various social media outlets. This puts you in control of the message you are sharing as well as the relationship between your company and your online referral traffic. So in closing when putting together your online marketing campaign ask yourself, how in control am I? Eric Wilson is the director of social media at the New England Real Estate Journal, Norwell, Mass.