Introduction
Social media and marketing go hand-in-hand today. With the advent of social media, the most influential virtual space, it has become easier to reach your target audience and build awareness across multiple channels within seconds.
According to Statista, a German company specialising in market and consumer data, there are over 3.96 billion social network users as of 2022. However, this number is projected to increase to 4.41 billion by 2025. With 59% of the global population utilising social media on a daily basis, your business does not want to miss out on using these digital platforms to reach and connect to as many potential customers as possible.
In this article, we will discuss four reasons why social media marketing is important for any business and why you should capitalise on it.
Helps build Brand Awareness
Social media is a great way to build brand awareness, especially if increasing visibility and media presence are priorities for your brand. By broadening the number of marketing channels, you are able to reach out and communicate to a much larger audience. However, there's more to it than merely being present on these platforms; it's also important that your presence and message are not only consistent across all channels but also visually appealing, especially when these platforms are heavily saturated with competitors. It can often be overwhelming and easy for potential clients to look past your account.
The Standard, a boutique hotel group, has successfully increased its brand awareness on Instagram across multiple accounts. The Standard delivers content carefully tailored to specific demographics for each of its hospitality locations.
Each account features relevant content of happenings, places to dine in and more within the area in a consistent aesthetic that captures the attention of its audience and inspires travel. The Standard demonstrates its expertise in creating Instagram feeds filled with content followers would find valuable, hence effectively captivating potential customers.
Creating a visually appealing and consistent aesthetic through social media marketing campaigns that can be easily recognised by customers over time will help build brand awareness and engage a larger audience. After successfully establishing a social media presence, your business can then further take advantage of the plethora of features such as Facebook advertising, which allows businesses to effectively target specific demographics based on location or interests.
The ability to Target Your Audience
There are numerous social media platforms that exist these days, such as Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, to name a few. With so many options out there, deciding where and how you'd like to utilise them is crucial. There are pros and cons for each platform, but it ultimately depends on who your target audience is and what you want from them. Therefore, choosing the right platform requires a good grasp of who your target audience is.
The table below provides a few mainstream social media platforms’ demographic and usage statistics as of 2022.
Sprout Social: 2022 Social Media Demographics and Usage
Social Media Platform | No. of Monthly Active Users | Largest Age Group | Gender | Time spent per Day | Trends |
2 Billion | 25-34 (31.2%) 18-24 (31%) | 48.4% Female 51.8% Male | 29 minutes | Reels are popular | |
2.91 Billion | 25-34 (31.5%) | 43% Female 57% Male | 33 minutes | User growth is slowing | |
TikTok | 1 Billion | 10-19 (25%) | 61% Female 39% Male | 89 minutes | 40% of Gen Z say they’re directly influenced by the products they see on TikTok Brands should take notice |
211 Million | 18-29 (42%) | 38.4% Female 61.6% Male | 31 minutes | One-third of Twitter users are college-educated and make more than $75K annually | |
810 Million | 25-34 (58.4%) | 48% Female 52% Male | 63% access network weekly 22% access network daily | Demographic of high-earning B2B professionals makes LinkedIn a potential goldmine for ads |
Diversifying your channels strategically will help you reach customers more effectively and create loyalty within the platform communities. Tech company GoPro is a prime example of how a company can effectively use multiple platforms to achieve various objectives.
Their Instagram account – now with 16.2 million followers – serves the purpose of showcasing their camera's quality as well as promoting user-generated posts within the GoPro community. With 10.7 million followers on Facebook, GoPro utilises the platform to reach new clients, connect with existing customers, and mass promote their brand. Twitter, commonly used for social updates, is the perfect platform for the brand to make product announcements and company updates to its 2.23 million followers. Lastly, Youtube perfectly complements its products’ biggest selling points by hosting trendy, viral, and often action-packed videos, as well as useful tutorials that draw current and potential customers.
Engage with customers on a deeper level
Social media is important for business marketing as it allows companies to break down barriers between them and their consumers. These platforms are hubs for consumer interactions that enable businesses to build a relationship with their consumers, so they can connect with them through follows, likes, comments, and shares.
Instant interaction is a unique attribute of social media that’s lacking in traditional marketing and can facilitate direct interaction and conversation for both consumers and businesses in real-time. This provides businesses with the opportunity to proactively engage with their customers, listen in on social conversations, and participate in social discussions.
According to Social Sprout, a software company specialising in intelligence tools for social media, 80% of customers expect companies to interact with them, and more than 50% of consumers find it more engaging to connect with a brand on social media. This is why businesses should use social media as an opportunity to be responsive to their customers, especially by listening to what they're saying. Social media listening is a common but powerful practice that can help your business better understand how your audience is reacting to your posts and obtain candid feedback. This intel and insightful data can help you build more relevant content and reinforce best practices that produce results in the future.
Learn from and about your competitors
The social media scene is saturated with all types of users, from direct consumers and businesses to influencers, making it the perfect space to observe and learn all about your competitors. These business profiles are easily accessible and can help you identify strategies that may be attracting similar audiences.
Social media is often a game of trial and error for businesses to recognise what types of content and posts are well-received. Learning from your competitors’ efforts can propel your business ahead and allow you to plan accordingly when creating your own social media content.
Checking in on what your direct competitors are posting and whether their content resonates with their target audience through social media analytic KPIs can help you understand how much of an impact their marketing campaigns have had. You can gain valuable insights at the expense of your competitors’ resources and benefit from benchmarking their successes.
Social media: the key to success?
In this digital era, your business stands to gain more from expanding your marketing channels. Whether your goals are to increase brand awareness, reach out to a more targeted audience, or encourage customer engagement, social media can serve to accomplish those objectives.
Social media is an immensely influential platform for businesses, hence, it is crucial to understand the importance it plays in their success, and to take action to adapt or risk being left behind. To find out how RAW CREATIVE can help your business with social media:
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