Social media is an extremely effective way for businesses to interact with their customers due to its cost-effectiveness and the vast scope of its reach. Many old-school business owners claim that their target audience isn’t on social media, but this is incorrect. The reality is that today, prospects conduct research online to inform their influence critical purchasing decisions – and the most popular websites in the world are social media sites.
Creating promotional content for your company on social media websites – such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – can elevate its brand identity, drive more web traffic, and foster positive associations with the company among its target audience.
But these sites yield more effective results for some industries than they do for others. Companies in the entertainment, technology, retail, real estate, and restaurant industries, for example, benefit the most from going social. If you think your organization is not extensive enough to benefit from social media marketing, think again – sole proprietors and small business owners reported the most benefit from this type of marketing. If your business has yet to take advantage of the rapid rise in social media use, then you’re missing out on a trove of untapped opportunities.
The Growing Importance of Social Media in Marketing
In 2021, there were 3.78 billion social media users worldwide – and this number keeps steadily growing. With nearly half of the world’s population active on social media, these platforms transformed into an indispensable method for companies to advertise their products and services. Research conducted in 2021 by DataReportal concluded that the average person spends over two and a half hours per day using social media. With so many people devoting so much time to social media, it makes sense to utilize its vast potential as a marketing channel. Studies demonstrate this as well – research conducted in 2018 by GWI found that that 54% of respondents will research products and services through social media sites. Moreover, a study from Forbes in 2018 concluded that 71% of customers who had a positive impression of a brand through social media were more likely to recommend it to their family and friends.
Social media also allows for the formation of authentic relationships with your customers. Engaging your audience through surveys, conversations, and responses to their issues or concerns allows you to bond with your customers and forges an affinity for your brand.
Free Advertising
Making a page for your company on social media and utilizing it as a marketing channel is not only an effective way to interact with your target audience – it is free. Furthermore, unlike more traditional marketing channels such as out of home and print, social media marketing has the benefit of providing data you can leverage to fine-tune your content strategy. For instance, Facebook allows you to see what time of day your audience tends to interact with your posts – and you can then post promotional content at this time of day to maximize the amount of viewership for your posts.
You can also enhance the efficiency of your social media marketing using other software. Hootsuite and TweetDeck, for example, will automate your posts and build timelines for scheduling future posts. Promoting your business on social media allows for countless opportunities to communicate commercial offers, attract prospective customers, raise public awareness for your brand, and converse and engage with your customers on a meaningful level. Social media gives you a first-hand look at your customers concerns, desires, and pain points. So, if you start noticing behavioral patterns or a reoccurring concern, you can tailor your content and messaging to address these points.
Paid Advertising on Social Platforms
While making a page for your company on social media and distributing promotional content is entirely free, businesses can also utilize paid advertising – a vastly more cost-efficient advertising method than print, out of home, and other traditional means. A survey conducted in 2020 on over 5,000 marketers found that over three fourths of them utilized paid advertisements on sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. Companies pay for advertising priority so that more users are exposed to their business’ marketing promotions.
You can learn how well each of your promotions are working and which demographic sectors they are working on; and you can use this information to adjust and improve your marketing strategy. For instance, if you find that one of your advertisements works extremely well on a certain demographic of customers but not at all with the others, you can use targeting options to use the advertisement exclusively for that particular demographic.
Influencer Advertising
Influencer advertising consists of sponsorship agreements with influencers – people boasting a significant following. The promotion of a product or service by an influencer demonstrates the quality of the product or service through social proof. The powerfully influential principle of social proof is that people determine what is correct through observing what others think is correct.
People look to others to make their decisions, especially when faced with uncertainty. It is the same reason that television programs employ laugh tracks – they cause an audience to laugh more and perceive the material as funnier – because if other people find it funny, then it must be. It is the same reason that advertisements often state that the product is the “best-selling,” or the “fastest-growing.” It is the same reason that advertisements utilize celebrity endorsements – if a celebrity uses the product, then customers believe it must be a good product and that they should use it too. Whether your sponsor is a superstar with millions of followers or a lesser-known icon with a few thousand followers – the concept is the same.
While the cost and effectiveness of the promotion will depend largely on the influencer you choose to work with – influencer marketing has been shown to work. A 2018 marketing survey conducted by Mediakix resulted in 88% of marketers saying that the return on investment for influencer marketing was better than, or comparable to, using other marketing channels.
Get Started with Social Media Today!
There are a broad range of different social media sites, but your company doesn’t need a presence on every website. Facebook and Instagram are the most popular, so starting with these would yield the most efficient return on your investment. Create a page for your company along with quality content that draws customers to your business – photographs, blog posts, status updates, promotions of sales or discounts, and links to your company’s website. Consider who your target customers are and why they would want to choose your business – then design content conducive to enticing their interest. From there, you can branch out into paid advertising, marketing through social media influencers, and utilizing other networking websites.
For your company to thrive, it is paramount that you use social media to promote your business. Social media is a revolutionary means of communication that allows anyone with a computer to instantaneously find and interact with people and businesses on the other side of the world. The competition is already using it, so don’t fall behind.
Do you need help reinventing your existing social media marketing strategy? With decades of combined experience in multiple facets of digital marketing, the Premiere Creative team will craft an engaging strategy that will convert prospects across multiple platforms. Dial (973) 346-8100 to connect with our team today.