TOP 10 ADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
The advantages of social media Marketing are countless.
In this article I highlight the TOP 10 advantages of social media marketing and how you should leverage social media to grow your business. Social Media has completely changed our daily lives, culture, and the way businesses operate.
But first, let’s have a quick sneak peek at how it all started. Also, I want to share some facts to prove the importance and impact of social sites.
Here are some interesting Digital Marketing Facts
As of January 2021, there were 4.66 billion active internet users worldwide – 59.5 percent of the global population. Of this total, 92.6 percent (4.32 billion) accessed the internet via mobile devices.
Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. It has grown tremendously… And…a number is projected to increase to almost 4.41 billion in 2025.
The below graph by Hootsuite illustrates the growth of population, mobile and internet usage as well as the rise in active social media users.
So I’ll make it short
53.6% of the world’s population uses social media.
The average daily usage is 2 hours and 25 minutes.
BOOM! That’s a lot! Do you agree with me? More than half of the world now uses social media.
No doubt we are currently living in a digital era. With over 4.66 billion active internet users, and of those 59.5 percent being social media active users, traditional marketing it is now losing strength while digital marketing takes over. Certainly, the traditional marketing won’t disappear from the marketing strategies, but it will no longer dominate the business scenario.
But what is exactly social media? Social media can be described as the ability to use the internet to share and communicate instantly with others, even across distances.
But…
Unlike what most people think, Social Media didn’t start with Facebook. The birth of connecting socially with people through the internet started with Six degrees, the website agreed to be the first social media site launched in 1997. Going forward, it was then the turn for MySpace to take over, leading into and inspiring sites like Facebook, launched in 2004.
Very quickly Facebook has become the main social media platform, holding an impressive number of 1.4 billion active users visited the social network on a daily basis. Even today Facebook is the most popular Social Platform across the world. Congrats, Mark Zuckerberg. You are a legend.
With so many Social media platforms going to rest, you made Facebook a legend.
Here are TOP 10 Failed Social Media Platforms:
- MySpace
- Google Plus
- FriendFeed
- iTunes Ping
- Google Wave & Google Buzz
- Meerkat
- Friendster
- Yik Yak
- Vine
- DailyBooth
Next, as we see, Facebook continues to enjoy the top spot of most used social media sites list. Year after year…
YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn are other social media tools available in the digital arena.
It is crystal clear, that Marketing through these networks is essential for any organization that sells products or services, whether local, regional, national or global.
Unlike traditional platforms such as television or radio, social networks do not offer a one-size-fits-all solution, but work according to the objective. The number of marketing strategies is as abundant as the number of social networks themselves. Choosing one requires a deep understanding of your target audience to generate value and create the strongest impact with messaging.
Ok. Let’s get to “meat and potatoes”, because you landed here to discover the
benefits of Social Media Platforms.
TOP 10 Social Media Advantages For Your Business:
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #1
1. Increase Brand Awareness
Compelling and relevant content will grab the attention of potential customers and increase brand visibility.
Tell your brand’s story, tell your WHY and share with the world- who do you want to serve, why it is important to you. How your products or services change the world, impact lives…
Your Story and You, is what make your brand unique, because there is only one of you in the whole world. If done right, Storytelling itself can revolutionise your Business.
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #2
2. Build Relationships
Social media is all about connecting people to people. In fact, at its root, it is about building relationships. If we look from a professional perspective, you can grow your professional network online tremendously by connecting with other colleagues, mentors, role models and other professionals. Nurture those relationships, and you will have a whole new network of beautiful opportunities.
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #3
3. Increase Your Visibility
The world of social networking will increase the visibility of your business to existing customers and attract new ones, allowing you to further expand and share information. The more accessible a business is online, the easier it is for customers to find you.
Good content, that inspires or educates, makes people laugh or feel good- gets shared. So, if you are consistently posting quality content, the more people who share it, the more people see it.
But…
Engage with those, who interact with your brand and other people’s content. Following people and interacting with them on social media will increase visibility and also will help to build relationships (I know, we are back to #2).
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #4
4. Boost Organic Visibility
Organic Visibility, is one of my favourite Social Media Advantages. Why? Because to rank high on Google it is not that easy, since every business aims for a page number one search results… Google has over 200 ranking factors, your domain authority is one of the most important ones. It takes time and effort to build your Domain and Page authority.
But…
You can leverage Social media and show up high on Search results much faster. How? Simply by putting long, deep content with valuable insights on social media, for example LinkedIn, and… Voilà!
Unlock this Social Media benefit and enjoy the results!
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #5
5. Increase Website Traffic
Your Website is the only piece of the internet that you own. This is where you want as many prospects as possible, because here, you optimize your website and make it work for you 24/7.
Social media is yet another supper awesome traffic source for your website. Increasing website traffic is on every entrepreneur’s list. Website traffic is crucial. Not a single sale happens with no traffic. If you have no traffic, it means people do not know you and your business. Your Business is a secret.
Use inspiration or entertaining posts on Facebook, videos on YouTube, photos on Instagram or create visual Pins on Pinterest to drive traffic to any blog post you want to. Pinterest is very powerful and it is 100% visual. Well-designed wedges can attract users’ attention much faster than plain text.
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #6
6. Improve Customer Experience
I bet your competitors are on social media, aren’t they? That’s the reason you should be too. Your potential and exciting customer expect to get answers…on social media too.
The way you interact with customers, whether they are first -time customers or loyal enthusiasts will impact your results.
Use Social media as a tool to keep in line with maintaining your brand’s respected reputation and impress your potential customers with how you are handling all enquiries and answer their questions.
People often rely on social media and online-review sites and make their buying decisions. Smart marketers are using social media as a tool to make sale journey as smooth and seamless as possible. From an enquiry- to converted lead.
So, help shed light on issues, support your customers and take care of questions, opinions and a feedback. That fact alone, will get you far!
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #7
7. Track Your Competition
I hope you are tracking you competitors- what they sell, how they sell, what they charge and etc. Social media channels are another opportunity to get to know your competitors better. It allows us to keep our finger on the pulse with the tactics used by our competitors. Do you want to know the golden tactic and the best way to get to know your competitor?
Well…
You asked, I answered. Pretend to be their customer. LOL. Or become a customer- then you would know them in and out. Just shhhhh … I have never told you this. Agreed? You’ll thank me later…
Then, when you know your competitors, it is time to roll up your sleeps and work on a plan to get ahead of them.
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #8
8. Social Media Ads Enables to Target High Quality Leads
Turn to ten of your friends and ask them -what for do they go on social media. Chances are, I’d say 9 times out of 10, is that they go to see the news- what their friends, relatives and neighbours are up to. Nobody goes to see ads and buy…
But if done right, Social media ads can revolutionize your business forever!
“Why “- you ask.
Because unlike radio, digital print or TV advertisement, on social media we can target people. We can show our ads ONLY to those, who are most likely interested in our brand. In our Products and Services. You can categorize audience buy sex, age, location, interests, behaviours, some events, job titles, and you name it. You can show ads to people who follow certain people, you can retarget people with a different ad. First show a video for brand awareness, second you can retarget people who have watched 50% of that video. Why? Because if they spent time watching the video, chances are they are interested. If they are interested, chances are they will…. YES…They will BUY.
Here are top 3 benefits of advertisement on social media:
- you can target your audience
- cost-effective
- you can measure the results
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #9
9. Helps to Build Global Business
Today, like never before, it is easy to reach an audience miles away from you. Even with a different time zone. You can target people you could never target before, show your products and services to the smallest places in another corner of the world. You can expand as fast as never before. Thanks, to Social Media.
Do not put the ceiling to your Business Growth.
Social Media Advantage for Your Business no #10
10. Helps your Brand Grow, Scale and Improve
Listening to what your customers want and taking this into your account, improving your products and customer services, showing up, replying, engaging and showing that you care, you build customer and brand loyalty.
You can turn your customer into brand ambassadors (when people promote your products to their circle).
As we can see the benefits of social media are tremendous. It’s free to start. So, create your profile, provide contact details, address to your website link (in case you haven’t done it all yet).
Successful social media marketing is achieved when organizations:
- create clear goals
- understand what their audience wants
- produce relevant and compelling content
- choose the right social media platforms that suit their product or service
Monitor progress as you develop your social media strategy, keep an eye on customer behaviour process and change, generate reports, reviewing your plan, and follow the trends. When you keep in line with those aspects, you get the most out of social media marketing.
So, it comes to no surprise that Social media marketing is so popular and on the rise. Also, advertising budgets have doubled worldwide over the past 2 years. More and more brands are enjoying results faster by using social media ads.
Oh, I want to add an EXTRA SOCIAL MEDIA BENEFIT
And this is…. I guarantee 99.9 % you agree with me on this one
It WAS the only and for lots of us having families and friends around the world, the best way to connect during CORONA times. It helped us to connect with each other, to keep in touch and updated. Social Media kept us motivated throughout the whole CORONA time…. Thanks, Social Media!
But…. Wait a minute… There is something I want to tell you!
However, on the other hand Social Media has also affected the society in the negative way…
I want you to read this word by word…because I bet, you will get away more!
The dark side of Social Media….
TOP 10 Disadvantages of Social Media for the Society
1.Online bullying
With so many face accounts being created (lots of them are caught and get deactivated, Thanks God) it has become as easy as never before for anyone to bully on the Internet.
to bully, criticize, put nasty comments or even send private messages. Unfortunately, some people are like tractors- they love spreading shit all around…Sadly, this is the truth… What’s ever worse, that threats, intimidation messages and face news can be spread to the masses in a matter of minutes. It creates discomfort and chaos in the society. Some research shows that approximately 1 in 20 students even commit suicide due to being bullied.
2. Hacking
Another big issue. People now days know techniques and hacks the Personal data and privacy. This can result in financial losses and chaos. Not only this. The history confirms, that hackers send millions of private messages and make private posts, that can damage reputation and mess up personal lives. So, keep your account safe to avoid all of this. Change your password time-to-time, do not share, log-out each time after you finish.
3. Addiction
YES! You have heard it right. Social media is an addiction. A few researches suggested, that on average people check their phones about thirty- four times a day. While other sources indicate, that number is much higher- about 150. WOW! That’s a lot. Do you agree? What mostly do they check? Well… we all know what… Let’s face it: we are hooked. It’s the pull to visit YouTube, Facebook, Instagram…only to find yourself still tapping and scrolling an hour later. It is the urge we feel throughout our day, but hardly notice it. Tell me honestly- how many times per day do you check your Facebook account? How much time do you spend on Instagram, even though you planned just for ten minutes while sipping your morning coffee? But these beautiful vacation photos your friend is on keeps you longer. The next thing you’re glued to these adorable dog or cat photos. How cute they are.
4. Destroys Social Skills
Social media can be dangerous. The addiction can disturb our personal lives too.
Social media has become the preferred forms of communication between friends and family, young and older generations. Social media interaction now dominates. Now with majority of connections happening on Social Media, we struggle to voice our opinion, to choose the right words, express ourselves in real life. It’s easier to speak our mind behind a screen, but when it comes to face-to face communication- voicing the thoughts, are going to be harder especially for the younger generation.
Next time you are in the restaurant or on any day out, pay close attention how many people of all ages spend on their phones. Scrolling through social media news, hardly noticing what’s happening around. It can lead to ruining relationships and even lives.
5. Fraud and Scams
Chain Letters
You may have seen before something like “”Retweet this and Bill Gates will donate $5 million to charity!”
Hidden Charges
“What type of STAR WARS character are you? Find out with our quiz! All of your friends have taken it!” Hmm, you think. This is cool and you can’t help but click and find out. You even enter your info plus your cell number, as instructed. After a few minutes, you get a text. It turns out you’re Luke Skywalker. Well, that’s funny. That’s interesting- you start to compare … but the fun ends the next month, when you see your phone bill.
You suddenly find out, that you unwittingly subscribed to some dubious service that charges you $9.95 every month.
As it turns out, it’s that “free, fun service”. Be wary of these bait-and-switch games. They thrive on social media platforms.
Hidden URLs
Be careful and think before you click on any shortened URLs. They are everywhere. And… you never know where you’re going to end up, since the URL doesn’t reveal the full location. Clicking on such a link could direct you to your intended site, or one that installs all sorts of malware or virus on your computer.
And there are more…some telling you have just won the lottery. Just imagine….How lucky you are. And how easy it was to win without even buying any tickets…Or similar ones “ you are out 1000’s customer, therefore you have just won and iPad” etc.
OOhhh, it gets some people so excited, that they don’t even think how could this even ever happen without taking part in any action. Be very careful!
6. Privacy problems
Social media companies are trying to adapt, but there are conflicting interests between serving their paying advertising customers and their social media users. Balancing the needs of both is difficult to do, even when there isn’t a financial incentive in place. As a result, it is likely that we will continue to see increased attempts at information gathering and privacy intrusions for the purposes of targeted marketing.
7.Reputation
Social media can easily ruin someone’s reputation just by creating a false message or story and spreading across the social media. Information spreads fast, especially when we don’t want it too….
Similarly, businesses can also suffer losses due to bad reputation, sometimes even faked reviews, stories or rumours created on the social media.
8. Health Issues
It has been proved so many times…that the excess usage of social media can also have a negative impact on our health.
Here are some shocking results from the latest study Dec. 14, 2020 (HealthDay News)
The study included nearly 1,000 adults aged 18 to 30 who were depressed -free at the outset, based on a standard questionnaire. All reported on their usual social media time and were assessed for depression again six months later.
By that time, nearly 10% fit the criteria for depression.
Overall, depression risk rose in tandem with time spent on social media. Compared with the lightest users (2 hours or less per day), the heaviest users (at least 5 hours per day) had a three times higher depression risk. Meanwhile, that risk was two times higher among young adults who were active on social media around 3.5 to 5 hours per day.
Obviously, excessive time on Social Media might fuel depression symptoms.
9. It changes lifestyle habits
Since using a social network is all done on some computers or mobile devices, it can sometimes motivate too much sitting down in one place for too long.
Most of the people get lazy because of the excessive use of social networking sites. This can result in a disorder in the daily routine life- little or no exercising.
10. It may make you lose your sleep
Melatonin is a pea-sized gland found just above the middle of your brain. Melatonin regulates your sleep. High levels of melatonin can help you sleep while low levels can keep you awake. While any kind of light can reduce how much melatonin your body makes, blue light—which is emitted from the screen of your smartphone—lessens your melatonin levels even more. Social media scrolling for hours, especially at night, can disrupt your sleep.
Ok. That’s 10 Social Media Disadvantages. But I have to add one more, because it is crutial
11. Lacks Emotional, real Human Connection
Social media withdraw from face-to-face real interactions. Have you ever experienced this? You spend an hour on social media interacting with somebody you haven’t seen for a while, then you two decide to meet up instead and sit down for a nice chat. But… Once you meet the person, then you can’t believe the other person pull the phone out and keeps scrolling through social media sites…. Often are times, they get so hooked, that they are not even present.
Or another scenario. They are with you, but not fully. The phone is on the table, and suddenly, inevitably the person grabs the phone to update their Facebook status, or “check-in” at the restaurant, or take a photo of the food for Instagram profile, and then…the next thing you hear the person typing the answer to a text message your friend has just received…and hour later the person check all the notifications and likes coming in for just uploaded food photo…
Often it seems as though people are socializing with everyone on social media, but not the person sitting right there with them….
You can’t help, but just remind the person you are here too!
It has happened to me a few times. I bet it happened to you too. Can you relate? It’s sad. Its very sad, that social media often takes more property in our brain than it should.
The quality of a conversation when using social media is not the same…you do not feel fully connected, you do not sense the emotion or interest from the other person. And sometimes you even wonder- does the person can recall what he/she said a minute ago.
It can lead to ruining relationships and even our lives….
Next time you meet anybody- put your phone on silence, look your friend in the eye and talk.
And this, the last disadvantage of social media, results of losing real connections, destroys relationships and reduces family intimacy.
Let’s sum it up.
TOP 10 Social Media Advantages:
- Increase Brand Awareness
- Build Relationships
- Increase Your Visibility
- Boost Organic Visibility
- Increase Website Traffic
- Improve Customer Experience
- Track Your Competition
- Social Media Ads Enables to Target High Quality Leads
- Helps to Build Global Business
- Helps your Brand Grow and Improve
The benefits of social media marketing for businesses are tremendous.
It offers vast opportunities to promote their product or service. Just as popular social networking sites allow users to connect with friends and family in remote locations, they are also powerful ways for marketers to create two-way conversations with potential customers. Do not forget, that users now expect to interact with brands on social media too.
It means that marketers have incredible opportunities to create ways to generate demand.
Social Media helps to build relationships, improve customer service and build trust. It gives addition tools for expansion and helps to sell more of whatever you have…
It provides Worldwide connectivity
Social Media networking is a must tool for every business. It’s one of the most powerful tools in the Digital Marketing arena.
Social Media has changed so many lives and keeps doing so throughout the entire world.
So, use Social Media Marketing to turbo-boost your Business growth.
Social media integration in your marketing mix is essential to be competitive in this noisy Digital Marketing World. By applying the right social media marketing strategy and techniques, you can improve brand awareness, drive more traffic, increase customer engagement and loyalty, and ultimately grow your business.
Social media creates new opportunities, it means more sales. The best part of it? It’s free!
Well done! You have completed reading the whole article.
Now, that you know the benefits of Social Media for your business, go and use it to the full!