If we reverse the time and go back to the late 90’s, the only platform for marketing was through radio ad, print ad, pamphlets, television commercials and magazines. Over the time, there has been an addition in the list that comes above all other platforms of marketing. Now the easiest and most commonly used marketing platform is social media. The early purpose of social media websites was to connect people and bring them closer through the internet, ultimately, these websites has been transformed into business tools that permit brands to connect with customers in exceptional ways. Social media has progressed from a space for personal interaction into a vibrant marketing channel for businesses of all sizes. In just a span of few years, social networking websites has left an undeniable mark on people, and business to be more precise. It is now a link between organizations and clients to communicate directly and frequently, establishing durable relations and even permitting them to work together on projects.
About 90% of the marketers claims that social media has generated immense exposure for their business and with spending just few hours a week, sales can be increased and they get traffic and recognition with minimum or no cost. If you are still thinking that how social media is just a fad which will end in few years, here’s all you need to know about how social media is the phenomenal marketing opportunity.
Increase Brand Awareness
Whether your company sells skincare products or techno gadgets, it needs to harness the strength and versatility of social media. It offers some important benefits to business by helping it to develop and strengthen relationship with customers. Now-a-days, it is nearly impossible to find an individual who is not connected to any of the social media platform. Same thing goes for the business. Regardless to the size of the business, everyone has added social media in their marketing strategies. If the presence of social media is strong in any business, it raises its profile and reach out to buyer to generate a lot of profit. But with the majority of companies in the industry already using websites like Twitter and Facebook, to create an online presence that is benefitting their brand in so many ways, it has become even more essential. Social media has the ability to generate organic brand awareness. While other marketing material like websites is the first go-to item for any new business, social media should be added on the priority list. It allows their business to grow not just locally, but globally and create its own feel and voice.
Target Customers
Social media is a wonderful avenue to attract actual customers who are willing to buy what you are selling, allows business to communicate to their followers. When followers ask questions on your page related to your product, it conveys a lot. Commenting, liking and sharing are the building blocks to your online success. Building your community is where the test begins. You can research and locate your audience. To enhance your social media marketing strategies, it’s important to know who your customers are and which social networks they use the most. Once you have an idea of what your audience looks like, you can make marketing strategies according to their interests.
Brand Loyalty
When brands don’t have loyal customers that purchase from them every now and then, you really need to lower your price and offer a better deal than your competitors.
And when customers choose your brand because of your price or any other factor, you become a commodity. Becoming a commodity always has a risk of losing customers if competitors are offering a better deal or price than you are. To avoid becoming a commodity, you need to build brand loyalty. In order to build and nurture brand loyalty, you need to understand how you can smarten your marketing strategies. Give your consumers a reason to choose your brand every time, for that, you need to know how? Surveys are a useful tool. It helps you to identify and assess the wants and need of a customer. You can also use free tools like SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to collect your answers.
Connect to Your Audience
Once you have the results of the surveys you did to identify your audience, it’s time to put that knowledge on various social media platforms. Some people might find pictures interesting, some geeks like blogs while most of the people like videos. According to some marketing specialists, video is the “Ultimate Marketing tool” that will marvelously grow your business. People are more likely to watch a video instead of reading lengthy articles and blogs. You can reach to your audience through different social media platforms according to their age, gender and preferences.
With 1.23 billion active users of every age group, Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. With such a large user base, it would be so foolish of you to not include it in your social media marketing campaign. It has a fantastic advertising platform where you can create Ads that have a powerful targeting parameter. With just a little money, you can let your page appear on people’s homepage and they can like it.
If you want to target 18-55 years old audience, Twitter is the right marketing platform for you. You can send out a message of 140 characters long to your subscribers through Twitter. If you want your post to reach the audience who don’t know about your brand, Twitter also has advertising option that is suited best for your small business.
SnapChat
If you are thinking that Snapchat will strengthen your brand, then you are somewhat right. With over 100 million daily active users, Snapchat is one of the fastest growing network. If you want to target the audience aging 18 to 34, this is the right platform for you. The application has added a special area for advertising-supported content from online publishers. That part of the app, known as “Discover,” displays up to 1 million short video ads every day. Snapchat is the perfect platform for real-time marketing because it can cover any event like product launch, trade shows, etc., and get the audience excited about the engaging and fun content that you are providing. Many of the big brands have added Snaphat in their marketing campaigns.
YouTube
With over 1 billion users each month, YouTube is an effective platform to target people aging 18-34. Because, rather than reading a length article or blog of your company’s product or service, they are more likely to watch an informative yet interesting video. You can use this platform if you want to support or assist your consumers on how to use your product efficiently, you can create a “How-to” video which is rather easier for the consumer to watch.
Tumblr
To Tumblr or to Tumblr not? Well, over the past several years, Tumblr has experienced wonderful growth. If you are offering a product or service that is best for people aging 18-34, give Tumblr a try. In 2015, Nescafe was the first global brand to move all its sites to this platform, allowing fans to share images, videos, GIFs and other coffee-related content.
