What do you think is the core objective of every business? Based on existing pieces of literature, every proprietor or company aims to make a profit at the end of each financial year. While businesses strive to achieve this primary goal, what obstacles are they likely to encounter?
Without reaching consumers and maintaining their customer base, individuals or entities engaging in commerce tend to make losses. As such, many of them end up shutting down their businesses. Thanks to the advent of the Internet and social media marketing, entrepreneurs can tap into new market share. What makes these channels effective in advertising?
According to the article “Daily time spent on social networking by Internet users worldwide from 2012 to 2022(in minutes),” published on Statista, the global usage of the Internet stands at 147 minutes daily as of 2022. With this number of people spending a significant amount of their time online, more and more people are consuming social media content, leading to many activities happening in the virtual world.
The scope of social media marketing in 2023 has become larger
With many companies entering the online space or combining their brick-and-mortar stores with the Internet presence, you cannot dispute the importance of social media marketing. Ideally, many trends have significantly shaped how businesses use social networking services such as WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, among many others.
Social media influencers
How can a startup with social media pages or accounts gain an online presence? Regardless of your stage of entry in an industry, you can use an influencer to promote your product. Why do you think such a strategy tends to be effective?
Scientific research on social media marketing indicates that most consumers are most likely to want to associate themselves with commodities advertised by influencers. For instance, since its launch in November 2021, r.e.m Beauty has won a lot of awards. Now think, if you hired this American singer-songwriter for advertisement, what would be her impact on your brand?
However, you don’t have to hire an expensive celebrity with the current availability of many people with substantial followers or subscribers on YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok.
Use of short clips and reels
While loading for new feeds, tweets, and statuses on social media platforms, what contents tend to catch your attention? Ideally, short videos on pranks, fashion, sports, and cultural activities. In case you’re wondering how to engage your target customers, you can use a dancing challenge and reward the winner and runners-up with merchandise of your brand.
Since more than 40% of US citizens watch short videos or clips each day, with individuals aged 18 to 34 comprising 53% of users, businesses can capitalize on this information to enter the United States market. This information is crucial for companies targeting college students as their primary clients. What is more, most social networking sites support video sharing, emphasizing the fact that short clips and reels are the kings of product promotion.
Omni-channel marketing
Do you think a company can lack a social media channel in the current competitive business environment? Definitely, it is impossible to get a well-established enterprise without a Facebook page, email, or TikTok. According to Lauren Bradshaw, a professional essay writer from CustomWritings paper writing service, organizations use social media platforms for announcements, customer care, or advertisement. For instance, Canadian or American colleges might use paid ads on Twitter to promote their scholarships to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, or any part of the world. However, reputable online stores like Amazon might announce coupons on social media platforms. Even with traditional stores for displaying and selling goods and services, companies take advantage of social media to have an online presence.
The science aspect of social media marketing for businesses
Even after deciding to use a certain social media platform for product promotion, how will you determine the most effective? At this point, the science aspect of social media marketing must come into the picture. You might follow the way students write their research papers in science. Here are the steps you can follow:
Step One: State the research question
While pursuing your education in college, you had to write a proposal and dissertation before graduating. Do you remember stating a research question(s)? If you are yet to graduate, you must have come across a guideline for writing an academic proposal.
At this point, your research question could be, “Does asking questions generate more content than creating a challenge on Instagram?”
The information garnered at this stage is crucial to the long-term plan for advertisement in the company. It is important to note that both strategies incorporate promotional discounts or coupons.
Step Two: Conduct an experiment
In collaboration with the research division, the sales and advertisement department will be crucial to conducting the test. For instance, the two sections of an organization can post a dance challenge and a question relating to the brand.
In this case, the company can let the followers on Instagram select the best dancer, but the sales and advertisement department should pick the first person who answers the question correctly. The organization can repost the results and award the winners.
Step Three: Observation and analysis
At this point, the sales and advertisement department should evaluate the number of shares, likes, and comments generated by the two challenges. A bar graph or pie chart could be useful in comparing the impact of two contents. Another way concerns observing how the employees within the organization talk about the posts.
Step Four: Take action
The sales and advertisement department and research division might recommend the company to use the one with more audience engagement. However, you might find that complementing the two ad approaches might bear more fruit in the short- and long-term. For instance, the company might ask random questions twice a week without rewarding the winner. However, for the dancing challenge, it might be once per two months, with the champion walking away with the brand merchandise.
Generally speaking, even though social media marketing tends to be cheaper than commercial ads on television or billboards, a company must strategize to achieve its goal. For instance, a startup should take time to build its online presence by either using paid ads or influencers. Whereas most companies use social media for marketing, some rely on it for communication and customer care only. Similar to science, exhaustive research is necessary when choosing means of promoting a product on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or other platforms. Therefore, you cannot ignore the impact of social media on the performance of new and well-established organizations in a marketplace.
Sharon Howe is a creative person with diverse talents. She writes engaging articles for WonderWorldSpace.com, where she works as a content writer. Writing allows Sharon to inform and captivate readers. Additionally, Sharon pursues music as a hobby, which allows her to showcase her artistic abilities in another creative area.