Social media marketing provides a low cost way for businesses to reach large numbers of users and gain brand recognition. Since social networking websites already have large established online communities, businesses and organizations can gain exposure by simply joining these websites. Organizations can create custom social media profiles, then build their own communities within these sites by adding users as friends or followers. Many companies attract users by posting frequent updates and providing special offers through their social media profile pages.
While SMM is a powerful online marketing tool, it is typically used to supplement other online marketing methods rather than replace them. Since just about any company or business and join a social networking website, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. Therefore, most companies still rely on Web advertising and search engine optimization SEO to generate traffic to the their websites.