The use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service is called Social Media Marketing. The most common are Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia and YouTube. This can apply to all types of businesses from marketing hotels to auto dealer advertising. Such is the versatility of social media marketing.

In our modern times, publicity is a hit for business. Somebody has to be trusted and known to attract buyers. This is the same for online businesses. These kinds of businesses need to be able to spread the word about their products and services and one method being used today is social media marketing. Unlike old marketing methods which require you to talk with your customers personally and establish rapport with them to have their loyalty, SMM is all about making one's brand part of customers' lives. This way, the company earns people's trust.

Various factors are behind the success of SMM. With it, you can be talking to your customer as if you were talking to a friend. This allows you to build a relationship with them by making them feel they are part of the marketing process and not just mere customers. Asking suggestions and feedback from the customers would make companies seem open to people and this often has a positive effect on the business. People view companies' willingness to communicate as a sign that they are committed to providing the best to their customers, either through products or services.

Through SMM, there will be faster results as compared to traditional marketing methods that make businessmen wait for a call or letter, both of which take a lot of time. Social media costs are definitely cheaper than the traditional methods. There are many techniques of using Social Media as a free marketing tool for free, from creating a Twitter account to a Facebook page, or even a company blog. Several reasons can really make the Social Media a lot better for marketing than what may be offered by old techniques. Unlike paid promotion, SMM broadcasts to a large group of social media followers and everything comes for free. Again, this applies to any type of business that uses a different marketing approach. From automotive dealership marketing to retail products advertising, SMM has proven its use time and again.

With SMM, business owners are allowed an opportunity to diversify their marketing materials often. This gives them more leeway in terms of changing their strategies without costing anything. Traditional methods require a business to actually invest in physical marketing paraphernalia such as fliers, brochures, etc. With SMM, everything will happen between computers and cost is low, if not negligible compared to what such an online marketing can do.