According to Pew Research Center, 70 percent of the nation uses social media to engage with people they know, read content, share information, and – certainly – procrastinate from work. It’s a major avenue for advertising – logging off is missing out.
It used to be that having a Facebook page was fine and fab – you posted every now and then and you were good to go. But everyone’s doing that these days; to get results, you must up your game. And this involves spending advertising money on social media, no matter your type of business.
There are many reasons this is necessary, including:
Targeting your audience
When you post to social media the typical way, anyone can read it – people near, people far, your grandmother, etc. Targeted ads, on the other hand, allow you to reach out to people interested in buying whatever you’re selling. They reach demographics of your choosing.
Customer engagement
There’s little point in using social media to reach customers if you’re not engaging those customers. One way to do this is with promotional videos. These are highly affordable and keep up with changing tastes: video dominates web consumption in the modern era. They also help you get noticed: per Digiday, 85 percent of the videos posted on Facebook are watched.
Increased brand recognition
Advertising via social media also paves the way for brand recognition (which is sort of the point of advertising in the first place). According to Forbes, this improved recognition makes you more accessible to new customers while making you recognizable to existing ones.
Loyalty, loyalty, loyalty
The most important thing to a business is loyalty: you don’t just want customers; you want customers who come back. A report by Texas Tech University found that engaging on social media makes customers more loyal. When people feel connected to a brand, they keep using it.
Decreased costs
Sure, some social media advertising costs money, but when compared to other routes of advertising, the costs don’t look so scary (or, really, scary at all). Per Buffer Social, the average CPC ad is $.28 in the US. Not too shabby when you consider a full-page ad in a magazine costs, according to Entrepreneur, between $500 and $20,000. Radio spots differ by market: in New York, a week’s worth is nearly $5,000.
Social media advertising isn’t optional, not unless customers or clients are optional, too. It’s the key to new clients; the way to a customer’s heart is through their computer screen.
It’s helpful to your current customers, too. Social media is the most direct, affordable, and efficient way to engage with people soliciting your products or service. Engage with them as much as possible and keep them loyal to you and your brand.