Social media marketing (SMM) is a form of internet advertising and promotion which seeks to accomplish branding and advertising through the involvement of different social media networks such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, BOOMj, YouTube, Dailymotion, Hi5, Gather.com, social web applications (webapps) such as reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon, Flickr, iLike, Wikipedia, Squidoo, Last.fm, Twitter, Eventful, ePinions. The objective of each campaign differs from every business or institution however the concept still remains to build brand awareness, increase visibility, and encourage brand feedback and establish communication as well as the possibility of selling the product and services
Social media includes websites where news, photos, videos, and podcasts are being hosted through user submission. Typically, these sites include system to allow them to participate in a vote on content. SMM takes a more active planned role directing, influencing or suggesting community members create and connect the content.
Online communities and campaign entails more finesse to perform it properly. They must be targeted to a specific community with a point that is appealing to them and encourages communication and discussion. The basic ways in achieving this is with authoritative information and to treat the sites as ‘social network’ first and marketing issues second.
SMM is somehow interrelated to other online marketing technique such as search engine optimization, search engine marketing, viral marketing, word of mouth marketing, and social media optimization. Many believe social media optimization (SMO) takes a passive role in establishing the framework for different social sites to connect themselves. Others feel SMO is taking the principles of SEO and applying them to social websites. SMM takes a more active planned role directing, influencing or suggesting community members create and connect the content.