Social marketing differs markedly from traditional online marketing. The objectives of traditional online marketing are to put your business’s message in front of as many visitors as possible and hopefully encourage them to come to your Web site to buy products and services, or to find out more information. The more “impressions” (ad views) you get, and the more unique visitors to your site, the better. Traditional online marketing never expected to listen to customers, much less have a conversation with them, any more than TV advertisers expected to hear from viewers. In social marketing, the objective is to encourage your potential customers to become fans of your company’s products and services, and engage with your business by entering into a conversation with it. Your further objective is to encourage your business’s fans to share their enthusiasm with their friends, and in so doing create a community of fans online. Ultimately, the point is to strengthen the brand and drive sales, and to do this by increasing your “share of online conversation.” There is some reason to believe that social marketing is more cost effective than traditional marketing although this is still being explored.