Social Media has grown massively over the years. When it was created several decades ago, no one predicted how big it would become these days. Today, the different social media platforms are not only avenues to connect people or places to share thoughts with other people. They have also become tools for business owners to grow their business. Social media marketing has become the heart of online marketing. But as many businesses and companies began to leverage this strategy, you may wonder about the advantages and disadvantages of using it. Here are some benefits of doing social media and the challenges you might face along the way.
Advantages of Social Media For Your Business :
1. Reach A Wide Audience
Everything you do to promote your business will only be valid when you have an audience to start with. Social media offers you an opportunity to promote your business on a large scale of people with a possible interest in your product.
With over 3.8 million social media users worldwide, you have an excellent opportunity to tap your desired audience that can open doors for your business. Social media can also be a great avenue to gather prospect leads and convert those leads into sales.
2. Connect With Your Audience
The different social media profiles you create give you the chance to interact with your audience directly. Traditional marketing strategies or even other digital marketing tactics only offer one-way communication. However, social media is a two-way party that can be very beneficial for your business.
As people start engaging with your social media accounts, be sure to respond. Answer their queries and be appreciative of their comments. As you do this, you begin to build a connection with your audience that you can turn to be one of your loyal customers.
3. Cost-Effective
Doing promotional activities for your business can take a considerable part in your budget. Traditional marketing like putting up of billboards on the busiest streets or getting a spot on TV channels can cause you a hefty amount of money which is why only big enterprises can afford. Social media have given a fair chance for businesses of all sizes to do a promotional campaign, even those without a budget to spare.
Despite the number of audiences you can tap with social media, creating a social media profile for your business will cost you nothing. Creating and posting content is free, which makes it very beneficial, especially for small companies and startups.
While you can do a lot of organic campaigns with your social media channels, there is also an option for you to step up your promotional activities with social media’s paid advertising services. These paid services allow your business to make more targeted marketing efforts and found leads that do not reach yet of your campaigns.
4. Opportunity To Build Your Brand Authority
Social media marketing can give you a lot of benefits. One of the most significant advantages social media can bestow upon your business is to help it grow and build it as a brand.
As you create and post your content, you expose your brand repeatedly to many people. As this happens, people will start to form a recognition with your brand, products and services. Once people have already begun to build connection and relationship with you, they will start sharing your content on their profiles, making your reach grow further.
5. Help Bring Traffic To Your Website
When people start to talk about you in social media, they will develop trust in your business. As their trust develop, they will then recommend their family and friends. Doing so can help but can help augment traffic to your site as the more people seeing your profile, the more people to click and visit your website.
6. Monitor and Evaluate Your Campaign
Social media is not only useful when it comes to reaching a massive number of people and targeting your desired audience but with the ability to monitor your campaign performance.
It is crucial to monitor your progress for every marketing activity you implement. The different social media platforms allow you to track your marketing campaign quickly and to check if it is meeting its deliverables. This feature also gives you the chance to make necessary adjustment and tweaking to make sure your social media marketing efforts will be a success.
Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing :
While the term disadvantages connote to a negative meaning, you should take note that the problems you will meet in your social media marketing should not hinder you not to include it in your digital marketing strategies. The disadvantages of doing social media marketing are more of a challenge that you can overcome and turn around to become an asset.
1. Tough Competition
Social media allows you to tap a vast number of people. However, it does not mean that you are alone doing this on these platforms. There are hundreds and thousands of businesses who also leverage social media to make their business grow. If you do not exert effort, your business will not stand out, and you get left behind in the competitors’ pit. Make your competitors become your biggest allies by closely monitoring their performance and be on the lookout for possible best practices you adopt.
2. Exposure To Negative Feedback
Social media gave people an avenue to express their thoughts, may it be positive or negative. If someone has a bad experience doing business with you, they have the power to share their first-hand negative experience with other social media users. They can comment on your post, tag you in their profile or even leave reviews which your social media channel visitors can see.
When someone left a negative comment or review in your platform, the last thing you want do is to ignore it. Validate your customer’s poor remark and respond to their concern. Look for the root cause of their problem and fix it as soon as you can to avoid another negative feedback.
3. May Consume A Lot of Time
Social media marketing is not an easy task. It is not a one-time thing but instead needs constant attention. To grow your following and establish your connection, you need to create new content to keep your audience interested regularly. You also need to monitor your profile, respond to people and keep track of your performance.
While this sounds like a ton of work, you can leverage different social media management tools available in the market today to make things easier for you.
4. Slow Results
Doing social media marketing is not an overnight success. You need constant effort to post quality content and engage with your audience to determine your success. Track your performance and wait patiently to see the outcome of your efforts.
Final Thoughts
No one can deny how social media marketing has created a significant impact on humanity. It has become part of the daily lives of many people around the world. As a small business owner, if you haven’t explored the possibilities of growing your brand in any social media platform, now is the time to do. While you may face some hurdles along the way, the benefits it can provide to your business can go a long way.
About Author : Ramon Francisco
Ramon has been writing about technology trends, entertainment, and gaming ever since he left the busy world of corporate HR Tech behind. He currently writes about software and user experiences for Softvire Australia – the leading software e-Commerce company in Australia and Softvire New Zealand. In his spare time, Ramon writes science fiction, collects little yellow men and plastic spaceships.
