By Drew Schulthess
Practice Director of Social Media Marketing

The definition of many minds explains Social Media Marketing as “a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.” But really, social media marketing is much more.

Social media marketing is a rapidly evolving and self-sustaining entity. Let’s look at the Wikipedia version a step further.

“…a term that describes use of social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other online collaborative media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.”

One very interesting point–this definition implies that social media marketing exists only when the objective is for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service. Or does it? Think about this: social media marketing exists with or without the presence of marketers.

The reality is that social media marketing takes place all of the time–whether you have a marketing strategy, goal or objective in mind. In fact, chances are you talked to someone today who is a social media marketer; maybe you even are one yourself and haven’t realized it. A mom who blogs. A teen who “like” or “dislikes.” A curmudgeon who publically announces he’ll never tweet for a burrito. See where I’m going with this? Anybody and everybody can be a social marketer-knowingly or obliviously.

Hopefully, the following definition brings it on home! Social media marketing is the enablement of word-of-mouth on the Internet around a product, service or purchase related experience.

This fresh perspective gets me excited, curious and truly pumped to do my job as practice director of social media marketing. I invite you to learn more about social media marketing in the days to come by subscribing to our blog feed. Got a specific question? Please connect with us on Facebook and send a question to us through our Facebook Application for Internet Marketing Q&A; .

It’s time to get social media marketing driving ROI on your company’s behalf. Let’s set up a meeting to discuss the opportunity in details.