Social media in marketing is important because it allows you to reach, nurture and engage with a targeted audience. Nowadays social media is a necessary daily activity. This is being typically used for social interaction, news information, and decision making.
You can use social media to create awareness, connect with the audience, generate leads, and increase revenue. This is a valuable communication tool for others to share information locally or worldwide.
What is social media in marketing
Social media marketing is an action to create content and promote your business on various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
Your content must be unique and tailored to a specific social media platform so that it can help the audience and create awareness.
Worldwide 53.6% population uses social media and the average daily use is 2 hours 25 minutes. Social media marketing in business is an incredible, valuable, and beneficial platform.
If you want your brand reach to customers and future customers then you must be active on social media.
Your strategy should be different on different platforms as per your audience spending time to get the benefits of social media in marketing.
What is social media advantages and disadvantages
For businesses, Social media advantages disadvantages are a real part of the story. It has many advantages like customer engagement and boosting website traffic.
Yet it can have disadvantages also for example negative feedback. But you can choose the best approach for your business keeping in mind the pros and cons.
Advantages of Social Media in Marketing
Social media is a substantial part of all companies marketing strategies. Again social media benefits both users and marketers because more than half of the world population is present on social media. If your business is not using social media then it is missing big opportunities.
Now let us understand are advantages of social media so that you can use it in a better way for your business.
1.Increases brand visibility and awareness
Social media is a very cost-effective method for improving content visibility.
You can simply create a business profile and start interacting with people. Again you can ask friends, coworkers, subordinates to like, share, and comment on your page.
In general, once people start interacting with your brand then your business reputation starts building. Every post you share helps expand the network over time all these people can become your potential customer. If you are spending only a few hours in a week then your exposure increases greatly.
There is no doubt if you are creating social media page for your brand then it is going to benefit your brand and you can create a large audience for your business. This is what does social media marketing does for your business.
2.More Traffic
Social media drives traffic on your website but if you are not doing promotion then your reach is limited.
People who already know about your brand focus only on earlier used keywords. It is desirable to place a better marketing strategy to increase reach to more customers.
If you are adding any social media profile then it is a gateway for your website and every new piece of content is an opportunity to grab new customers. Social media allows people of different thoughts to gather in one place and share thoughts. If you share the content of different platforms then this allows individuals to reach your business organically.
3.Better ranking in search results
Although social media does not affect ranking directly in search results but helps to attract traffic.
But if you are using social media for your business regularly then you can see improvement over time. Most people search in Google and they prefer to click on first page results.
If your website is not on the first page of the result then you should do some SEO. Social media could be a way to help you in reaching your goal.
You should create high-quality content regularly by using infographics, blogs, photos, etc. Once you start creating quality content and building a social media community, followers start sharing and commenting on your post.
Again your increasing popularity attracts industry influencers and they start writing about your business and link back. Hence your ranking in search engines improves directly.
4.High conversion
If visibility increases then your business has more conversion opportunities. For every blog post, you see an increase in traffic.
Social media marketing provides identity to your business and creates a positive impression. When brands become interactive by sharing content, comments, and posting statuses then it becomes a powerful brand.
People prefer to do business with other people rather than a company. If you are developing relationships with consumers then you can see positive results in sales.
Again if you maintain a healthy relationship with visitors then they will think about your business when they need products or services.
Research shows social media leads have high conversion compare to outbound marketing. When a brand is interactive online then consumers follow your brand trust more so business credibility increases.
People use social media platforms to connect with friends, family, and communities. Most marketers see lead generation by using social media.
If you keep your brand in an atmosphere where people like, share and comment then traffic on your website improves.
5.Better communication and customer satisfaction
Social media is a networking and communication platform. If you reply with personalized messages then customers become more satisfied in comparison to automated messages.
Again acknowledging messages shows you are attentive and your objective is to provide the best experience to customers.
Every answer you reply sets an example for other visitors about commitment. Either it is a question or complaint that social media allows you to express your views through inter-person dialogue. If a brand replies customers complain even though people take it positively.
6.Better brand loyalty
All businesses have the objective to create loyal customers. Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty go hand in hand. This is important to engage customers and develop a bond with them.
Social media is not only for introducing products or services it can help you in the promotion and a kind of direct service channel to customers to communicate.
7.Cost-effective advertise
Social media marketing is certainly a cost-effective advertising strategy. Most of the social media platforms are free to sign up. If you want paid promotion then you can start for only a few dollars.
Cost-effectiveness provides a better return on investment. Only by spending time and money, you can improve conversion significantly.
Once customers see your business is on social media and reply regularly then credibility increases.
Again regular interaction with customers shows you are ready to reply to any question. Satisfied customers spread products and services with word of mouth.
Generally, they post their views on social media also If a customer shares your brand on social media then new customers give more value to your brand.
Your business will attract more customers and the value and authority of your business increase.
8.Collection of data for research and improvement
Audience research is equivalent to social listening. You can find keywords about audience searching. By collecting insights further you can make improvements in your products or services.
Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter allow you to collect information about post reach and insights.
9.Retarget audience
Retargeting customers using social media is a great way to increase the customer base. Generally, only 2% of people purchase any product on their first visit. Social media advertising helps you to reach the rest of 98% of people.
10.Fast and Easy communication
Customers can get a fast and easy response to their queries with social media. Secondly, businesses can review and respond to customer’s queries fast. It also depends upon industry and grievance yet the line of communication becomes faster.
Disadvantages of Social Media in Marketing
Using social media has some disadvantages also. If people are telling positive then it is fine otherwise negative feedbacks can destroy your business.
You should keep both in mind the advantages and disadvantages of social media in marketing. Below are some possible disadvantages of social media as a marketing tool.
1.Regular time devotion
The first disadvantage is you have to devote a lot of time regularly. To maintain social media network dedication is also a must.
If you want people to visit your company profile then you have to update regularly. You must write good content and reply to user’s queries. It all requires time and effort.
Therefore you have to evaluate is it worthful or not. If your social media page is for the business you have to pay special attention otherwise it can be counterproductive.
2.A professional is required
You require a professional to handle a social media page. Social media requires strategy and knowledge in depth to be effective.
If you assign this job to an unprofessional person then your business and brand can be affected negatively.
You also may have a requirement to outsource videographers and animators. Social media users are growing day by day.
Therefore a person is required who can handle well and understand the importance of like, share and comment.
3.Financial Investment
Apart from hiring a professional you also need to do some financial investment to boost your online presence. Free resources can help you up to a limit if you want to increase your reach then you have to drive paid promotion also.
The fundamental is social media also require money to survive however they are earning from advertisements.
4.Risk of inappropriate behavior
Every type of person is present on social media platforms so inappropriate behavior is also expected. Once you start gaining share then competitors start feeling the heat.
You can have negative feedback on your page which can diminish your brand image so you should be ready for all these possibilities. It is also the possibility of leakage of confidential information through hacking.
5.Working on platforms without ownership
Social media platform allows you to create a page but you cannot decide terms. You are fully dependent upon network mercy. It is also possible any new update keeps you out of network and you lose the investment of time and effort.
Therefore businesses must keep updating regularly and use social media platforms as a tool for enhancement. You also hear sometimes boycott of social media on certain issues.
So you should make a strategy accordingly and create accounts on different social media platforms.
Conclusion:- Social media marketing importance
Now you can understand what is social media networking sites advantages and disadvantages.
As you see social media in marketing has a lot of advantages when you think about business promotion. It has some disadvantages as well.
Only to stick on social media for marketing is not the right idea. This can work for your business very well or the negatives of social media marketing can destroy so it is taking a risk.
The best way is to choose all available options for marketing. However, utilize the benefits of social media keeping in mind the disadvantages of social media marketing for business. You should also work on SEO(Search engine optimization) to become more successful.
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