By Tim McMahon, editor

Social Media Marketing Consultants

Social Media Marketing is a new field and just as happened in other new fields like web designers 15 years ago, companies are scrambling to find qualified people to perform this valuable service for them. This is truly an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a budding industry and make a name for yourself and carve out a lucrative career before others catch on.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is a relatively new method of promoting businesses via social media platforms and finding customers and ensuring customer satisfaction after you’ve found them. Companies are increasingly realizing how important happy customers are and that it is much more profitable to retain existing customers than to constantly look for new ones. Today, social media is not just used for finding long-lost colleagues or old High School friends on Facebook; or Tweeting about what you had for lunch on Twitter. Social media has turned out to be an important tool for businesses that want to create a successful online presence. As more and more people are using social media to search for the products they like, social media marketing has become a regular part of daily business transactions and businesses have discovered social media as a method to reach their target consumers and establish a pleasant brand experience online.

As a result, smart companies are shifting a part of their marketing dollars to social media. Large companies like Proctor & Gamble, Taco Bell, and Pepsi are budgeting huge amounts of money to manage brand perception and promote their products via social media. And in the process, they are creating the demand for thousands of Social Media Managers and Marketing Consultants.

So what do Social Media Marketing Consultants do?

Tap Into the Conversation

If an organization wants to find out the “chatter” in the marketplace about a particular product, they need to check the social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook in order to see what prospective customers think about the brand. Social Media Marketing Consultants have their fingers on the pulse of the community. They monitor the chatter and set up alerts related to keywords pertaining to the brand they are monitoring. By tapping into this network and spreading the word Social Media Marketing Consultants can quickly spread the good word or defuse bad chatter from dissatisfied customers.

Spread the News

Social Media Marketing Consultants will often spread interactive online content, in relation to the commodity that’s being launched. For example if Pepsi wants to launch a new soft-drink it might create a game or a contest related to the new product to create a buzz around it with the hopes of it going viral and creating positive word-of-mouth from influencers.

Perform Online Customer Service

If an online linked in Social Media person discovers a dissatisfied customer he or she will quickly step in to diffuse the situation and turn that dissatisfaction into an amazing customer experience. Smart companies are empowering their Social Media consultants to handle customer service issues quickly before they become media nightmares.