Social media is integral to our individual lives. You want proof? Check your phone’s battery usage. Most of your battery or time is probably dedicated to a few social media apps. The recommendation engine of these social media giants keeps us glued to our phones. (Check out our article about search and recommendation engine to learn more.)
Since all of us consumers spend most of our time in the social media world, it is paramount for businesses to establish their presence in social media in order to stay relevant.
Here are 3 benefits social media offers to businesses and brands:
1. Advertiser-friendly
Most popular advertising channels for businesses before used to be TV, Radio, and Newspaper. All of which cater to millions of people. They also cost you millions of cash. Unfortunately, compared to social media advertising, these mass media advertising platforms are not as efficient nor as effective.
Efficiency is maximizing your resources to produce outcome. Whenever you have to buy a 30-second advertising spot in between two popular TV programs, you have to pay a huge amount in order to secure that spot. Add to that the huge production cost to create a 30-second spot. It is justified by TV ad numbers which show that millions of people in the country watch TV shows. But do they really? It is possible that the TV is running but no one is looking. I know of people who use the TV simply for background noise. It is even worse if you think about the fact that some people do watch the shows, but do something else during commercial breaks. The millions you spent on the TV ad spot and production? Wasted.
Effective is being able to achieve the outcome you want. When you advertise via radio, you most likely choose which radio stations cater to your target age demographic. What if you are targeting kids and young adults who prefer to stay glued to their mobile phones or use earphones whenever they are inside cars on the way to their schools? Despite millions of potential reach, the 10-second radio ad you produced will not be as effective as you want it to be if your target market is not listening to it anymore.
How do you know how many people really read your newspaper ad or how engaging your TV ad really is? You cannot. Traditional advertising channels offer very limited data to gather insights from. Social media advertising on the other hand, gives you specific data such as Reach, Engagements, and even the specific demographics and interests of people who saw your ads.
Things are different in the social media space. You can control the target market who will see your ads. You can specify age, gender, interests, and even behavior among others. It is a much more targeted and effective advertising tool compared to most mass media channels.
Social media is advertiser-friendly because it is data-driven, much more targeted, and much more relevant compared to traditional advertising platforms.
Most people these days spend most of their time exercising their thumbs scrolling through their feeds. Nowadays, social media is the most efficient and most effective platform for advertisers.
2. Brand-friendly
Since social media allows people to engage with the brand and keeps track of all kinds of data, it is easy for brands to determine the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. It is helpful for brands to sense the market’s reaction. Brands can see whether we liked their post, whether we shared it with friends, or we commented something bad about them. This helps brands react and adjust almost in real time to what their customers want, to what we want. If in case a brand launches a not so effective campaign, they can look into the data and tweak it as necessary.
The same luxury cannot be applied in traditional advertising channels such as TV, Radio, even billboards. Given the lack of engagement and data capturing, it is almost impossible for brands to adjust and react to the sentiments of their customers. Billboards do get vandalized sometimes. Maybe that is kind of similar to comments on posts? Hmmm…maybe not.
Social media also allows brands to sense not just their market’s wants, but also their competitors acts. It is as easy as going to your competitor’s social media page and scrolling through their personal feed. Some social media platforms even have features that allow you to watch and monitor your competitors’ posts and its performance. Even without actual sales numbers, this helps brands get an idea of their brand strength and market share relative to their competitors and the rest of the industry.
On top of all the market-sensing, social media also allows brands to have their own brand ambassadors for free. Given the nature of social media, people are encouraged to make User Generated Content (UGC) which help brands market their products or services for free. These brand ambassadors can also sometimes engage with other users and vouch for the brand’s quality and trustworthiness. You can’t get that level of engagement in flyers or pamphlets!
Social media is brand-friendly because it allows brands to do a market-sensing of both their customers and their competitors, and cultivate brand ambassadors for free.
3. Customer-friendly
Speaking of engagement, social media is simply the best communication platform these days. It even serves as a channel for customer service or after sales support. It is easy for brands to engage directly with their customers via social media channels. Brands cannot do this with their TV or radio ads.
An actively-managed social media account of a brand will show lots of back and forth interactions between customers and the company. You will see different versions of “Thank you for loving our product!” alternated with different versions of “We are sorry for the inconvenience! Please check your inbox!”. We also see popular catchphrases like “PM is the key!”
This level of direct engagement between brand and customer has never been practiced in most other forms of marketing channels. Not even word of mouth advertising or guerilla marketing has this level of communication between brand and customer.
Speaking of word of mouth, social media also allows customers to interact with other customers. Given the nature of social media platforms, potential customers can see reviews and comments of past and existing customers. As a brand with a quality product or service, this is beneficial and can only help you in the long run. Because everyone is now spending their time in the digital space, word of mouth has transformed from gossip vines to forum threads.
Social media is customer-friendly because it allows brands and customers to actively engage and communicate with one another.
Clearly social media is so much advantageous for businesses nowadays. Hopefully this 3 ABC benefits I wrote about gave justice and helped summarize the benefits social media platforms provide to businesses. If you are a hesitant business with minimal social media presence, hopefully this article gives you that push you need to start working on your social media game!
Not yet convinced? For more listings of benefits of social media in business, check out this article or this article.