Social media marketing is using social media channels to connect with your existing and prospective customers. There are countless examples of these social media platforms available to us today. These include Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok and many (MANY!) more. There are some even we haven’t heard of yet.
There are over 4.62 billion users of social media – that’s almost 60% of the global population! The scope for social media marketing is huge. This is why so many digital marketers struggle with the concept of social media. It is difficult to know where to begin. It is, however, inevitable that brands must start to incorporate social media into their digital strategy.
Another challenge to overcome for marketers is how to target their customers using social media, where do they begin? To start with, it’s important to understand what your customers are doing on these social platforms in the first place. The downside? It might not be the answer you want to hear. According to Hootsuite, the main reason we use social media is to communicate with our friends and family (47.6%). In comparison, only 27.7% of people use social media to find inspiration for things to do or buy.
The Advantages of Social Media Marketing
1. Large potential audience
The potential audience you can reach on social media is huge. According to Hootsuite, Facebook Ads have the potential to reach over 2.1 million people and there are over 1 billion Instagram users. The digital population is growing, and we’re not sure it’s going to stop anytime soon.
You have the opportunity to connect with both existing and prospective customers. Nowadays, customers are looking out for new brands that speak to their beliefs and lifestyle. With the right content, there is no doubt you will find the audience you need to.
2. Brands can build strong customer relationships
Social media channels are fully equipped with a range of tools that facilitate communication between brands and their customers. These tools include likes, comments, and shares. With the added bonus of instant direct messaging, brands have the ability to reach their customers whenever they want.
Comments give customers the ability to communicate with a brand whether or not they like the content the brand is publishing. The most powerful tool on social media, however, is sharing. With the option to share posts, customers can take a piece of content they find engaging, interesting or inspirational, and share it with their own pool of followers. These people often click through to investigate your brand, and with the right content they are likely to convert and become a new customer.
3. Social media marketing is cost-effective
Creating an account is free on almost all social media platforms. It costs nothing to post, use hashtags, and interact with your customers on social media. Promoting paid campaigns on social media costs money, of course. However, this is still not a massive dent in your marketing budget. As well as this, you need to be able to generate high quality social media content. This isn’t an impossible task, though. At Rapid Agency, we often encourage our clients to arrange a photoshoot to generate a range of social media and web content. This one-off payment can create a string of content for months, so the investment is always worth it.
The initial costs you put into your social media marketing are often the biggest. This is because over time you will become more familiar with your audience. From this, you can use insights to find out what works. Then, you can fine-tune your social media costs and invest into what you know works.
It’s important to always be alert when it comes to social media marketing
As with anything in today’s society, social media marketing does come equipped with some risks you should be aware of. When done right, social media marketing can be extremely profitable for businesses using electric word of mouth. However, it is never guaranteed that your word of mouth will remain positive. It only takes a few minutes for a campaign to turn sour, resulting in a lot of criticism for brands.
Therefore, we always encourage our clients to implement a social media marketing campaign that speaks to the audience in the correct tone. Your audience generates your profits, so you need to keep them happy. To do this, your reputation needs to be intact and positive.
Let us make sure your social media strategy is strong
When it comes to social media marketing, we often find that the good outweighs the bad. With a good social media strategy, you can benefit from a great increase in your reach and audience size. It is only when you (or your digital marketing agency!) do something to upset your audience that things go wrong.
At Rapid Agency, we work closely with our social media clients to ensure that we know their audience well, and we know what will resonate with them. With our expertise in social media, we can analyse your insights effectively and give you the answers on how to improve.
If you would like to get in touch with a member of our team to discuss your social media strategy, contact us! We are always on-hand and happy to help talk about your social media needs.