The Social Media Opportunity

Why Your Brand Should Consider Incorporating Social Media Advertising into Your Marketing Strategy

What is Social Media Advertising & How Can it Be Useful For Brands? 

Social media advertising refers to the process of creating advertisements on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and more to promote a product, service, or brand. It is a type of online advertising that uses social media networks to reach a targeted audience and engage with them. Social media advertising is designed to leverage the vast user data collected by social media platforms to deliver targeted advertisements to users based on their interests, behaviors, demographics, and other criteria. This makes it possible for advertisers to create highly personalized and relevant ads that can drive traffic, generate leads, and increase sales. There are numerous different forms of social media advertising, including sponsored posts, display ads, video ads, carousel ads, and more. Advertisers can also use a variety of targeting options to ensure that their ads are shown to the right people, at the right time, and on the right platforms.

There are many reasons why social media advertising is beneficial for brands.  With the significant amount of time spent by consumers on various social media sites, seen in the graph to the left, brands have a huge opportunity to reach their target market and deliver relevant content and advertisements.  This gives them the opportunity to vastly increase their brand awareness and help consumers discover their products.  As people interact with the brand on social media, their network of friends and followers can also become aware of the brand, leading to increased visibility and potential sales.  Social media platforms also allow brands to target specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and other criteria, ensuring that their ads are being seen by the people most likely to be interested in their products or services. It can be much more cost-effective than traditional advertising methods, such as TV or print ads, since brands can set specific budgets and only pay for the clicks, views, or actions that their ads generate.  Finally, social media platforms provide brands with analytics and insights that allow them to track the performance of their ads and adjust their strategy accordingly. This helps brands to continuously improve their advertising efforts and achieve better results over time.

Incorporating Social Media into a Multi-Channel Strategy

Having a multi-channel strategy is vital to a brand being able to find lasting success both on-and-offline.  A multi-channel marketing strategy allows a brand to reach a wider audience by using a variety of marketing channels. Different channels attract different types of customers, and a multi-channel approach ensures that a brand is reaching as many potential customers as possible.  This also provides customers with multiple touchpoints to engage with the brand. The more channels a brand uses, the more opportunities they have to engage with customers and build brand awareness.  This also leads to an improvement in the customer experience by providing customers with a seamless journey across different channels. With consistent messaging and branding, regardless of the channel they are engaging with, this can help to build trust and loyalty with customers.

Incorporating social media into a multi-channel marketing strategy can be highly effective for a brand. A brand should have a consistent voice across all channels, including social media. This helps to establish brand identity and makes it easier for customers to recognize the brand. Brands should ensure that the tone, messaging, and visual elements used on social media are consistent with other channels.  In addition to this, social media is an excellent platform for brands to provide customer service. Customers often use social media to reach out to brands with questions or complaints. Brands should ensure they have a dedicated team to monitor social media channels and respond to customer inquiries promptly.  Social media is also a great way for brands to interact with customers and get real-time content of customers utilizing their products. This could include photos of them using the brand’s product, reviews, or testimonials. Lastly, brands can use the analytics and data provided from various social platforms to help identify which channels and audiences are driving the most engagement and which efforts are most effective. Brands can then optimize their marketing strategy and targeting accordingly.

Social Media Trends in 2023

Social media is continuing to grow with the addition of new platforms and increasing users.  A recent study by eMarketer explains that the majority of major social platforms are forecasted to gain users this year, and the number of social media users are expected to surpass traditional television viewers by 2025, as can be seen in the graph to the right.  As social media continues to grow and obtain new users, television viewership has been on the decline since 2016.  More people in the United States are relying on social media for their entertainment than those who watch traditional television.  Additionally, TikTok and Instagram’s new Threads platform are expected to grow exponentially over the next several years, with Threads being a direct rival to Twitter.  Another revelation from the recent eMarketer report is that Reddit is growing in popularity, especially among Gen Z and Millennial internet users.  By 2027, it is expected that 32.8% of Gen Z’ers and 35.5% of Millennials will use Reddit regularly as a social media platform.  Overall, social media is only going to continue growing in popularity, and as new platforms continue to launch, it will be interesting to see which ones dominate the market and which ones fall to the wayside.