Marketing has always been one of the most important aspects of the business. Naturally, over the years, it has gone through a variety of changes in approach and trends. Nowadays, we’re witnessing a lot more effort being put into successful social media marketing strategies than in any other sphere of advertisement. Many are wondering why that is and how come social media has become so influential in the world of advertising.
There are a lot of reasons behind it. Today, we’re going to highlight some of the key benefits and advantages social media platforms have over traditional media, as far as marketing is concerned.
It’s (Almost) Everyone’s Favourite Past-Time
If you were to look at people nowadays and compare them to people 30 years ago, you’d see that people back in the day were much more drawn to TV and reading. Needless to say not everyone had a PC and smartphones just didn’t exist, but that’s actually the point. Nowadays, everyone has a personal phone, a tablet, a laptop or a desktop computer. Some even have all of them! That means that they’re pretty much online 24/7 365 days a year.
If you take that into consideration, it’s safe to assume that social media takes up a large portion of that time. Multiply that by the number of popular social media platforms and you get probably well above 5 hours a day of interaction on social media platforms. That means that the companies can reach the consumers, freely, for a large portion of their day. That makes newspapers, TV, billboards and other traditional media platforms almost obsolete.
Easy Targeting
It’s not to say that you couldn’t target certain age and interest groups back in the day, you certainly could, but with social media, it’s a lot faster and easier. You don’t have to guess anymore whether older or younger people watch certain shows so you can air your ad during the commercial break or print your ads only in certain magazines or sections of certain daily newspapers.
Nowadays, all it takes is for you, as an advertiser, is to select a few key things like age, interests, location and so on and the algorithm does all the rest for you. So, for instance, if you’re selling women’s makeup, you’d make sure your ads are only shown to women of certain age and interests, instead of showing them to everyone, thus losing money on ads that are never going to convert to sales and are just going to end up hidden or scrolled by. That brings us to our next point…
It’s Cheaper
Of course, the cost of production, strategizing, time spent on developing ads is always going to come at a certain price. But when it comes to pricing solely for advertising – social media marketing is much cheaper compared to traditional media. It’s easy to see this as being the more cost-efficient option once you factor in all the different benefits – including the aforementioned targeted advertising. You see, when you target your ads, you’re not wasting money on pointless advertising. Also, with social media marketing, you have a lot more control over planning and strategizing, which also leads to much more cost-efficient results. In addition to all of that, it’s just cheaper to run ads on Facebook or Instagram than it is to run a TV commercial.
The Sense Of Intimacy & Trust
Let’s say you’re advertising something that’s rather delicate – for instance ED remedies. Sure, there are a lot of TV commercials on the subject, but you’re broadcasting the ad to millions of people at once, sometimes a lot of them are in front of the same TV set. More often than not, that’s going to result in a reaction that’s not beneficial for either you or your potential customer.
On the other hand, if an ad like that is shown on a mobile device when the potential customer is alone and feeling secure – you’re almost certainly going to end up with some kind of a positive reaction. Intimacy is absolutely crucial for a lot of customers and it’s something that’s often overlooked when it comes to marketing. If you can build a sense of intimacy and trust via your ad, you’re pretty much sure to gain a new customer.
Instant Reaction
Many years ago there were a lot of infomercials and TV marketing that would urge the viewers to pick up the phone, dial a number and place an order for a certain item. Now, that worked for a while, but there’s a reason it’s not as popular nowadays as it once was. It’s too complicated for modern men and women and it just takes too long.
With social media marketing, on the other hand, a viewer has the ability to interact with you, as an advertiser or a seller, almost immediately. All it takes is one click and they’re on your page, ready to place an order for whatever it is that you’re selling. This immediate call-to-action aspect is often overlooked, but it really shouldn’t be.
Influencers
As we’ve mentioned previously, trusting an ad is quite important. If your audience isn’t buying your pitch, you’re never going to move your product. The fact of the matter is, people, don’t like being advertised to if they don’t trust the source. We’re far more willing to take advice from a friend or someone we admire or respect, than from someone we don’t know and is trying to sell us something.
That’s where influencers come in. Their relationship with their fans and following is built on trust and admiration. A lot of follower’s respect and have confidence in the opinion of the influencers and are more likely to buy a certain product if that person recommends it to them. Far more likely than if you or I were to try and do the same.
Sure, there are influential people on TV or other traditional media platforms, but they’re quite harder to reach and cooperate with and they still don’t have that kind of relationship with their fans and following, as the social media influencers do with their own.
As you can see, there are several, rather major, advantages of social media over traditional media when it comes to advertising.
