Social media : cheap and effective marketing

Nowadays, social media, which has changed the way people connect, discover, and share information, has becomes a major marketing tactic for many companies. More and more companies choose to market their products, services, and brands through their social networks. Social media takes advantage of the technology that connects people and refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites. Social media has been adopted rapidly primarily because it is cheap and effective. Although most marketers believe that social media is cheap and trendy, but not very effective, the online marketing trend cannot be ignored.

According to Constant Contact’s 2011 Small Business Attitudes & Outlook Survey, small businesses are using social media marketing more than ever before. The survey showed that 73% of small businesses and organizations have started using social media marketing, 61% of those not using it expect to start marketing through social media within the next twelve months, and 65% report that social media marketing works well with other forms of marketing. Social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are the places where social interactions happen. People join chats, discovering their interests and sharing information online. Social media is all about discovering and sharing cool stuff; every interaction you have through social media has the potential to reach many new people. Social media marketing is the way to use such online networks to build relationships, increase business and attract new customers through friends who share with friends. It is changing the way people connect to each other. Also, according to a Social Sharing Research Report from Chadwick Martin Bailey, 75% of people are somewhat or highly likely to share content that they like with friends, co-workers or family and 49% do this at least weekly. Social Media is all about discovering and sharing information, and it has the potential to reach many new people who will be your potential customers.

The Internet provides users with the ability to research brands, products, and companies online. Social media gives users the opportunity to interact with the companies, brands, and people of their interest. It is an easy way to observe and interact with your audience. Social media marketing is much cheaper than traditional marketing for making connections with an audience, such as advertising online or on in print. Additionally, the best advantage that social media marketing has over traditional marketing is that it costs nothing to set up social media accounts. The real costs to a business are the time and resources a company needs to put into their sites. If you are a larger company, you may want to hire an online marketing company to help organizing your social media contents, which still costs less than putting ads on other medium. However, a company with a limited advertising  budget is still able to maintain its social media channels and interact with costumers. Compared to traditional media marketing strategies, social media provides a relatively inexpensive platform for executing marketing campaigns.

With traditional marketing campaigns, such as those that use print, radio, or television advertising, a company will have limited ability to make changes without spending more money. However, with social media marketing you have more flexibility. Moreover, you are able to evaluate campaign results through each network’s analytic tools. You can use the data to calculate costs and estimate potential customers’ behaviors to adjust your brand strategy. You can easily see how many people clicked on links and how many shares took place during a specific period. Also, the real traffic numbers are attractive to your advertisers and investors, compared to traditional marketing, in offline campaigns where it is harder to measure and know your audience.

According to Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Survey 2012, 92% of consumers trust word-of-mouth above all other forms of advertising and 70% chose online customer reviews as their second most trusted source. People do trust what their friends say rather than what brands say about themselves. This is why so many people are willing to try something new based on what their friends say on social media. Whether good or bad, people are easily influenced by their friends, especially in today’s online world.

The benefits of social media marketing are understandable; the initial gain is an increase in brand awareness. Creating brand awareness can be one of the greatest challenges for a company with a limited marketing budget. However, social media marketing is a great way to start with zero cost. Setting up social media accounts costs nothing except time and resources to maintain different social channels. Secondly, the one-on-one relationship is beneficial to a company. Social media marketing allows small business to reach individuals and provide customized service. Also the one-on-one communication model increases trust and credibility. The next advantage is that companies are able to do their market research while they are maintaining their social network accounts, which will save on the huge expenses that it would cost for a small business to conduct formal market research campaigns. By creating an online presence, you can get real feedback at no cost to your business, which is an effective marketing strategy.

However, social media marketing cannot be an independent marketing tactic. It is not a full replacement for other marketing tactics but will work as part of a broader marketing strategy. It works best when combined with other marketing activities, especially email marketing.

Social media is growing faster than ever before, and is increasingly able to provide companies with flexibility and increase their success. Social media marketing can benefit your company, not just because competitors are doing it, but because it is an effective and economical tool for connecting with your customers.