Information in this blog post was obtained from Hubspot Blog, Social Media Examiner, and Moz Blog.
At first glance, it’s easy to assume that social media marketing is some lofty concept that only huge companies or businesses use. I mean some of the words alone sound like a different language. You have terms like keywords, key performance indicators, metrics, price per click, conversion rate, and so many more. Sometimes these complex terms can bog you down making it easy to forget why social media marketing is important and the advantages that it offers. In this blog post, we will break down why you should use social media marketing, the advantages it has, and why it’s important. By going over the benefits that social media marketing has to offer, it can help simplify this seemingly complex process and hopefully help you better understand it as well.
Why You Should Use Social Media Marketing
You might wonder why you should use social media marketing. Certain aspects of it can be rather expensive, especially if you don’t have a solid strategy. What you may not realize is that social media marketing can actually be more beneficial to smaller business than it is to large corporations. The Social Media Examiner has a blog post that outlines why everyone, but especially small businesses, should utilize social media marketing. They found that when small business owners used social media marketing, 89.2 percent of them saw benefits, mainly through an increase in exposure. This is huge for small businesses because it helps them get their feet off the ground. One of the hardest things about starting a business is getting started. However, social media marketing can help make that easier, offering lots of hope to all small business owners.
Another reason why you should use social media marketing is that it can help lower marketing costs, which seems the opposite of what you would think. Based off a 2011 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, it was found that 59 percent of people who were self-employed and 58 percent of small business owners saw a decrease in marketing costs when they started utilizing social media marketing. Although that might seem odd, it makes sense when you remember that most all things on social media are free. Other than adds, everything else comes at no cost to the business or person using them. As a small business or self-employed individual who might not have a large budget, social media marketing can be a game changer. And of that isn’t enough, the Social Media Examiner reported that the benefits of social media marketing continue to compound with time. Only 25 percent of social media users saw new partnerships within the first year of use, but at year three, that jumps to 80 percent. It's time that we stop believing that social media marketing is just for the powerful, wealthy companies. All individual and companies, regardless of size should use social media marketing because it can help increase exposure and save money in the long run.
Now that we have touched on a few of the reasons why you should use social media marketing, let’s talks about the advantages that comes with it. Keep in mind that these advantages go way beyond profit and making money.
Advantages of Social Media Marketing
If I was to list every benefit that came from social media marketing, this post would be too long to read. Although it can be expensive in some cases, the benefits still almost always out way the costs, by a long shot. Hubspot writes an article about the five main benefits of using social media marketing. Below we are going to explain and break down each benefit so that you can fully understand how it helps a business or individual be successful.
1. Customer Engagement
The first advantage of social media marketing is customer engagement. This refers to how your customers engage and interact with the content that you put on social media. You want this to be high because engagement is what helps drive people to make a purchase. Customers cannot buy from a brand that they don’t interact with. That’s why engagement is important because it puts your brand in front of people and leads them on a journey that will hopefully result in a purchase. Additionally, customer engagement can also help spread your brand to people who may not even be customers yet. Hubspot found that 71 percent of customers with a positive brand interaction on social media recommend that same brand to their family and friends. In this way, customer engagement acts like a free advertisement.
2. Marketing Perspective
Marketing perspective is how a company watches, tracks, and reacts to their content. When using social media, it isn’t enough to just put content out there. You must constantly keep track of how it is performing and when needed, react to it to make it better. Social media marketing is extremely helpful with this because many social media platforms have their own analytics, that let you measure how well your content is performing. Even better, most of these analytics are free. In fact, 65 percent of businesses were able to increase their overall social media marketing budget because of the free analytics found on social media platforms. They were able to so this because they maintained a strong marketing perspective which then helped them save money that could then be reinvested into their marketing efforts.
3. Product Discovery
Product discovery in another advantage offered by social media marketing. This is exactly what is sounds like, when people find a new product that they have never seen before. Companies are constantly releasing new products or services in an effort to grow and be successful. After all, you can’t just release one product and expect to ride it out for the rest of time. Social media marketing plays a large role in helping people discover new products. Hubspot states that over half of all Internet users turn to social media to find a new product. If that isn’t enough, 66 percent of companies said that they turn to social media when they are going to release a new product. If you don’t use social media marketing, then you are likely missing out on tons of potential customers.
4. Brand Building
Brand building is important to businesses because it’s how your brand gains credibility. It’s essentially what allows your brand to establish authority within your industry. Another advantage of social media marketing is how easy it makes it to build your brand. Instagram is the main place to do this because over 200 million social media users visit at least one business page per day. Think of how well you could establish your brand simply through a business page on Instagram. Keep in mind, the more people that visit your page, the more credibility you gain, and the bigger you can build your brand.
5. Drive Purchases
The last advantage to using social media marketing is to drive purchases. In other words, using it to convince people to buy the product or service that you offer. Given that almost everyone in today’s world uses social media, it only makes sense to use it to your advantage. Social media marketing helps businesses to create posts that convince people to buy things. Obviously, this is advantageous because it creates more profit for whoever is selling the product or service. Hubspot reports that nearly half of consumers of a given brand bought items they saw on a social media post. Think of how many more purchases you could create simply by using social media.
Now that we’ve talked about some of the advantages that social media marketing offers and how they can benefit businesses let’s talk about why social media marketing is important.
Why Social Media Marketing is Important
Social media marketing is more than just posting things on social media and hoping for the best. Just like any type of marketing, it acts as a pathway to reach customers. But, reaching customers alone isn’t enough, you must build relationships with them. Think about the products and companies you buy from. Do you want to purchase things from a company that doesn’t take time to make their customers feel valued? Do you want to support a business that has no relationship with you or your community?
That’s what makes social media marketing so important because it gives businesses an opportunity to make personal connections and build relationships with customers. No other type of marketing allows businesses to do this like social media marketing does. Moz blog has a great post about the ways that creating relationships with customers can help companies to find their niche markets and increase business as well.
Moving Forward
Hopefully, you can now better understand why you should use social media marketing, the advantages, and benefits that it offers, and why it’s important for a business’s success. Considering how many people are using social media today, it’s essential that businesses, especially small businesses, utilize this tool in their marketing strategy. On top of that, social media marketing also offers numerous advantages like increasing customer engagement, improving marketing perspective, increasing product discovery, building your brand, and driving purchases. Above all, social media marketing is important because it provides unique access to help create relationships with customers.
If this blog post interests you, then moving forward, you should continue to learn more about social media marketing and how it can benefit the businesses and people that use it. Although it can seem complicated, like a tool reserved for big corporations, remember that you can benefit from it just as much as the next person. If you want to learn more about the advantages of social media marketing, check out my colleague Mike's post here. This post provides tons of great additional information on this topic. Remember that social media marketing is a valuable tool, especially in this day and age. Make it a priority and watch as it transforms and multiplies your business's success.
Resources
Carmicheal, K. (2019, October 30). The 20 quantifiable benefits of social media marketing for business. Hubspot. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-roi-stats.
Mershon, P. (2011, April 18). Small businesses benefit most from social media, study reveals. Social Media Examiner. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/small-businesses-benefit-most-from-social-media-study-reveals/.
Moz. (2009, February 18). How can you use social media marketing channels. Moz. Retrieved April 12, 2023, from https://moz.com/blog/how-can-you-use-social-media-as-marketing-channels.
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