This post is a basic, high-level look at social media marketing, written from my perspective as a consumer marketer who uses social media marketing in my business as well as personally.  I follow this marketing channel as closely as I can and wish to step back and answer the what and how.

Social media allows participants to use technology to socialize and interact.  I like it because it allows me to share my life, what I do, where I go and what I think and feel with others that I do not have the opportunity to socialize with in person.  We can be included in each others lives somewhat, but not the same, as if we got together on a regular basis.

So if we know what social media is, what is social media marketing?  It is a way to market to consumers through the social media tools they use.  Just like TV and radio are marketing channels, social media can be used as another channel to communicate your message and brand.

How, then is social media marketing done?  There are 3 ways I like to think about using this channel.

1. Advertising.  Just as TV has 15, 30, 60 and 120 second spots in between the programming, social media marketing is inserting your message and brand in any number of ways in the hopes that the user will see and act on it on some way. In the online world, banner ads come to mind.
2. Content.  If you are a consumer marketer, you want to engage with your audience to some degree that captures and maintains their interest and attention.  Advertising can do this, but providing content to them can be more powerful.  Pre-Internet, during the early 1990′s when I was just out of college and starting out in the world of consumer products and services, my company put together monthly newsletters.  They were sent via mail to past or prospective customers to engage them with helpful content as a way to generate leads.  This is not much different from content delivered via social media, except that subscribers or viewers of your content are provided with ways to interact with you based on the content instead of simply digesting it.  However, in my opinion, its still mostly one way, as people still digest the majority of content without interacting back.
3. Solicit interaction and generate feedback.  This is where social media marketing is rather unique apart from previous marketing channels.  As a consumer marketer, you can post content and ask questions to engage and interact with your audience.  Consumers can also use this channel to contact you.  A well-known example is Dell’s use of twitter in many areas of customer service.  Consumers can interact amongst each other about your products or brand and that interaction can reflect positively or negatively on your company for everyone else to see.  Using the social media channel to solicit interaction and generate feedback clearly requires an increased level of service on your part to adequately and appropriately respond to consumers.

When I read anything about social media, and I try to read a lot, since I am an entrepreneur in consumer products, I always try to put what I am reading in the context of where it fits in these 3 buckets.  That helps keep me from getting lost in all the complexities of how people are doing it.