According to some of the latest stats, there are some 3.2 billion people on social media. This equates to 42% of the population. 54% of social media browsers use these platforms to research products. This means that social media marketing is extremely powerful for brands and getting their message out to potential customers.
The conversational pull of social media
The question has to be asked as to why social media marketing is so powerful. Social media is all about contacting consumers directly. It’s about having a conversation that’s unique to them. It’s not about the ‘old school’ spray and pray approach to marketing where marketers put together a generic message with the hopes that it will reach favourable ears who would respond to it.
Through social media, consumers are able to contact brands and tell them what they think of certain promotional material and why it’s effective or ineffective. Brands are able to strike up conversations with their target market and make the customers see that their opinions matter to them and shape their business practice.
Low budgets produce great results with social media marketing
With the advent of social media, big brands no longer have the advantage when it comes to advertising. Small brands can just as effectively put out successful campaigns on social media channels that rival – and may surpass – those put out by big brands.
The secret lies in defining the objectives of the campaign well and devising innovative ways and means that you can use in order to carry these objectives out. During this process, you will need to figure out how much you can afford to spend on the campaign and stick very closely to this budget.
For example, Burger Revolution – which is a stand-alone burger restaurant in Ontario, Canada – has a board in their restaurant where customers can post comments about their experiences at the restaurant. The marketing goal of Burger Revolution is to reach local customers and to make their current customers into repeat customers.
One of their ongoing social media campaigns is to take one of the comments which were posted and to post these on social media. This activity – which doesn’t cost that much – proves to be highly effective at spreading the positive experiences of current customers with a view to attracting new ones.