Social media is a powerful marketing tool, a platform where people communicate with each other and follow brands, and get acquainted with various products and services.
If you miss getting acquainted with trending social media platforms, your potential customers will likely discover your competitors first. Don’t believe us? Let’s look at some stats for 2022:
- Customers discovering new brands in social media – 55%
- Customers interacting with brands and companies via social media – 68%
- Consumers searching for products and companies on social media – 43%
- People buying products after having a good social media experience – 78%
- Executives investing extra resources in social media – 80%
- Executives planning to invest more in social media marketing – 90%
- Companies notifying decisions on social media – 72%
Is social media marketing really that awesome? Actually yes. But only when you have complete knowledge, some smart ideas, and patience.
Social networks might have more than one plus, but there are also enough shortcomings in terms of doing business.
Many brands have found success because of social networks, but at the same time, many have ruined their reputation there.
In today’s article, we will explain the pros and cons of social networks so that you can understand if you can do social media marketing on your own.
Table of Contents
Pros of Social Media for Business
Social media platforms are a very effective platform for business development. You can use it for advertising and brand promotion. You can more accurately define your target audience and influence specifically on it.
More people interested in your product will learn about the company from social platforms and are more likely to receive information about your offerings.
In addition, this advertising is cheaper than TV advertising, but now it brings better results. Here are the pros of social media for your business:
1. Justified costs
Social media is the least expensive way to target markets for your products. Other approaches like door-to-door marketing, MR approaches, or affiliated marketing is expensive alternatives.
You can create an account on social media platforms for free and use the tools offered without paying upfront. However, you still have to invest in promoting a business page to make the most of it.
Creating unique, applicable, and catchy content, visuals, support, and advertising campaigns will cost a decent amount.
Social media is a cheaper marketing platform than other promotion methods, which require more employees and setup costs.
2. Social media Reviews
Buyers will take the time to research product reviews online before making a final decision. Site owners with the social network will be able to interest potential clients and strengthen their business reputation by collecting feedback from customer reviews.
The non-negative reviews provide companies motivation to outperform the current standards. The negative feedback or bad reviews will highlight problems of companies that will make a marketing effort more client based.
Creating and developing your fans is also an advantage through social media sites. Brands with exceptional mottos and flawless product delivery will instantly be people’s favorite.
The social media profiles in which a company discloses the personality of the social media accounts and continues to sympathize with valuable content create enthusiastic fans and succeed in developing online reputations with high LTV (Life Time Value).
4. Can co-create with consumers and other companies
Creating an event or competition is the best way to indulge consumers in brands’ products or services.
In two-way communication conducted on social media, consumers can expect real-time reactions to transmissions from companies, and as a company, you can acquire live customer feedback and opinions.
In addition to consumers, it is also possible to communicate with other companies’ accounts across industries and scales.
Companies working together can create marketing projects such as campaigns and events.
5. Increases your sphere of influence
As the company starts to grow, there is always a chance of disability to figure out for client’s problem quickly.
Customer service is always at the forefront of issues, so is it solvable if you start your online presence?
Yes, Certainly. Social media provides an opportunity to quickly respond to a complaint and turn a dissatisfied customer into a loyal customer, thereby increasing your sphere of influence.
If you are not including customer service in your social media strategy, you are missing out on its biggest benefit.
6. Easy information update
The significant advantage of social media for your business is you can easily update your company’s information in no time.
When updating the contents of the homepage of your business website, the effort and cost are not small.
Specialized technology is required for updating, but if no person in charge can update in-house, you will have to ask a contractor such as an operating agency.
However, in that case, it will take time to communicate with the vendor, and it won’t be easy to disseminate information on time. The main disadvantage is more financial expenses.
Social media does not require specialized skills to update information. Since anyone can easily do it, there is an advantage that you can send information without worrying about time differences and cost.
7. Ranking your company website in a higher SERP position
Links from social networks and social signals – reposts, likes, tweets – positively affect website promotion in search engines.
Links through social networks to content, articles, and videos from your site and the site itself mean that the content you provide is informative, entertaining, and valuable.
When this happens, search engines react and use the data to improve content display on search results pages.
8. Effective branding is possible
A social media marketing plan makes it easier for users to become more familiar with the enterprise.
Branding is a variety of measures to increase the name, reliability, and value of a company, product, or service. It was done by mass advertising or press parties in the past, but there were disadvantages such as high cost and slow advertisement.
WEB promotion using social media activities enables much more efficient branding than the conventional method.
Users’ sympathy and familiarity with the company make it easier for consumers and companies to work together to develop products and services.
9. Maintain Brand trust
The internet consists of many spams, fake websites, companies, and malware that can make a genuine brand doubtful to customers.
The first thing consumers look for is the company’s identity or profile, and where can you create one? Of course, social media.
The brand’s social media presence will benefit them with authority, promotion, user intimacy, and social bond.
But make sure you deliver your intended promise to consumers; otherwise, you might be able to maintain that trust.
10. A brand as an opinion leader
Opinion leaders on the internet or social media are those whose expertise and influence act as a trust for consumers.
Brands can be opinion leaders with a strong social media presence by identifying people’s interests in issues or products that the company can promote.
Recent Linkedin research has shown that marketers underestimate the job of creating customer white papers, especially in the B2B segment.
About 80% of buyers noted the importance and necessity of such content creations, noting a positive impact on brand attitudes.
11. Help start a conversation
You will understand what customers need by asking questions about the quality and usability of a product or service. You will also get a chance to analyze the facts and improve the business in the future.
Discussions act like a magnet – when one starts, others instantly focus and begin to follow the conversation closely.
It is like a chain reaction, where the number of people increases as the topic of conversation develops. Thus, by answering the questions of one user – you answer the possible questions of a dozen others.
12. Lead Generation
Social networks offer an easy way to attract potential customers – lead generation. Ad formats specially designed to collect leads are almost eight times more profitable than regular ads with a link to the site.
For example, Renault ran a Facebook ad that asked users to “learn more” about a new model to get a free test drive. The “Learn more” button redirected users to the page for ordering a test drive.
13. Timely measure to solve the reputational crisis
When two black men were arrested in 2018 at Starbucks, the hashtag #boycottStarbucks went viral with lightning speed, spreading 100,000 hashtags in 3 days.
The company at once posted an apology on social media, after which it made several more announcements, including that cafes in the region would be closed for racial bias training.
No one knows how long the incident’s consequences will negatively affect Starbucks’s reputation, but the consequences would be worse if the company were left without attention.
The example shows that social media can aid in analyzing, responding immediately, and minimizing the level of damage from ongoing public issues.
The step for using the above pros of social media for business as a marketing strategy can be hectic if you do not know the steps to follow. The steps are:
- Fill out the complete profile on social media,
- Prepare the hashtags and use them,
- Cross promotion for following in social media,
- Use best-branded icons in social media,
- Promote the brand in emails and newsletters,
- Create targetted advertisements,
- Post ideas and thoughts by tagging products,
- Offer discount but only on social media purchases,
- Social media giveaways,
- Hire an ambassador,
- Involve your employees, and
- Change another social media platform if not working.
Cons of Social Media for Business
Along with this, there are some limitations and features of marketing in social networks that you should consider for an objective assessment of promotion prospects:
1. Lengthy Time consumption
Maintaining groups and accounts in social networks needs time every day. There is nothing worse than unanswered user questions.
It is almost impossible to outsource without a streamlined account management process. The initial attraction of interested social media users will also take time.
2. Costs may rise suddenly
Even though saving on promotions is one of the advantages of social networks, you can accidentally spend more than you planned.
Without experience setting up an advertising campaign, the budget will evaporate instantly, and there will be no result.
Quality content also costs money. The better, the more expensive. Unique photographs and videos undoubtedly attract attention, but to get them, you need professional equipment and the ability to use them.
You can hire a specialist, but the more beautiful and brighter the picture you need, the more you have to pay. You will not even notice how the budget disappears somewhere without a trace.
3. Need experience
Social media marketing has become complex, so you need to have the experience to create working advertising campaigns. Of course, you can set up and run everything yourself, but ads will not attract people.
In addition, you need to know how to appropriately interact with your audience and regularly monitor trends in Social Media Marketing (SMM).
Promotion in social networks is thorough and challenging work that is best left to specialists. Having the right experience, they will immediately do everything right and, at the same time, will not waste the budget, as is usually the case when trying to launch advertising on their own.
4. No content, no community
Social media channels live from the content! No content, no likes. And without “likes,” no community.
Companies that don’t manage to inspire the users of a platform with their content will find it challenging to achieve success. After all, it is about convincing them of your own company with the help of your content.
For companies, this is about understanding the “language” of the respective platform and giving the published content a unique “touch.”
Of course, you should also publish content regularly. It is the only way to stay in the mind of your community.
Companies that don’t have the time to produce content continuously have a hard time right from the start. After all, why should someone follow their company presence if added value is not continuously provided here?
5. Large wholesale or B2B segment
Having a group or an official account on social networks can only help for dialogue, but most likely not for attracting customers.
If you want to grow your brand on social media, finding a suitable business-to-business group to interact with end users and buyers is best.
Unlike entertainment groups, social networks do not have dozens of communities like “a typical supermarket owner,” “lovers of installing air conditioners,” and “facade glazing fans.”
6. Shitstorm, insulting comments, and negative headlines
Let’s not kid ourselves: not every published content of your company is a “hit”! From time to time, your content immediately prompts questions, comments, and criticism.
It is not only essential to react quickly to this, but above all, to react professionally! After all, social media thrive on multi-way communication. Companies that want to be successful here must take the time to interact with the community.
The community likes to interact here – and prefers to get prompt answers! As a company, you must adapt to this situation and be prepared to go the “extra mile” even on weekends and public holidays. Such are the rules of social media!
You can clearly see the trends in social media these days about #boycottbollywoodmovies. The result of this has swiped away audiences from theaters even though the movie is not bad.
7. Need for a plan
Posting a lot of content without a plan makes little sense for a business. It may also reach people who may not necessarily match your target audience.
In addition, many different postings posted on any platform without a plan are often not noticed because they are irrelevant to your target group. Therefore, it is advantageous to create a plan, but it takes time.
You can avoid many actions to minimize your disadvantages by choosing social media to promote products. They are:
- Unclear strategy while posting,
- Overly promoting your services or products,
- Being afraid to invest in aiding platforms,
- Rigid posts like a robot, and
- Not correcting mistakes.
If you weigh the pros and cons of social media for business against each other, it quickly becomes clear that the effort is worth it. Every other marketing measure is also associated with time and costs.
With social media marketing, the costs are comparatively meager. We can not deny the time investment, but it is worth it.
Social media for business has a proper place, and it is worth investing time and money in an excellent social media marketing strategy and creating good content.
Quick Comparison (Pros and Cons of Social Media for Business)
| Higher confidence in the information that does not look like a familiar advertisement |
| The ability to contact representatives of the target audience from different countries and regions, increasing coverage without reducing conversion |
| Segmentation of the target audience based on various criteria that provides a higher quality of information delivery |
| Significantly lower cost of an advertising campaign than television advertising with the same or greater coverage of the target audience |
| Operational feedback allows you to flexibly change the conduct of an advertising campaign depending on the reaction of the target audience |
| Fast response speeds up the collection and processing of information received during the promotion |
| Delay in acquiring results due to lack of direct advertising message, and social connection-based promotion |
| Requires constant activity in posting materials for greater user involvement for stable and long-term benefits |
| A long and hard-earned reputation is always in probable jeopardy by unsuccessful publication |
| The flexibility and high complexity of the advertising campaign make it difficult to pre-calculate the budget |
| There is no guarantee for the achievement of the desired result |
| Search in social networks in terms of popularity is still inferior to the use of search engines |
(Last Updated on September 2, 2022)
