At the turn of the century, the recommendation was that every business needed to be on the internet, able to be found using Ask Jeeves, Altavista, Yahoo! Search and the new kid on the block, Google. Just over 20 years later the major players used to search the internet have changed, and now rather than telling you that you need a website, most marketers will tell you that you need a social media presence.
In this article we investigate whether you actually need a social media presence, and if so, on which platform/s.
Social media has become an invaluable tool to many businesses over the past 10 - 15 years. Social media has allowed businesses to:
- Effectively and cheaply reach new audiences with engaging content
- Build trust and rapport with customers and establish a brand identity customers resonate with
- Leverage customer UGC (user generated content) to help market their brand
- Grow their businesses at a rate that previously would have been impossible without hideously expensive TV and radio advertising that was only available to conglomerates
But with social media now being a well established medium, with an excess of brands using it to market, is it still as valuable as it once was?
The truth is, that organically, you will rarely get the same reach and engagement that occurred when a social media platform first launched, so unless you are one of the first businesses who jumps on board a new platform, which experiences considerable growth, you likely won’t experience the rags to riches successes with no paid advertising that brands before you have. That said, there is still a place for Social Media to be incorporated for almost all businesses however there are a few things that you need to consider when determining how social media will benefit your business.
1. What role will social media play in your customer journey?
When you think about how your customers first hear about your business, how they come to consider you as a solution to their problem, and how they eventually commit to purchasing from your business, where does social media fit in?
Perhaps if you are running brand awareness campaigns on Facebook and Instagram it will be beneficial to have an organic social media presence.
Maybe your customers love to keep up-to-date with what you are doing and creating and sharing content on social media subsequently drives repeat purchases and pushes up your lifetime value.
Before incorporating social media into your marketing endeavours, ensure you know where it fits into your marketing funnel and set KPIs against which you can measure its performance.
2. Weigh up the cost vs reward
Oftentimes, when businesses think of organic social media, they think ‘free’, but the truth is, running organic social media accounts well requires considerable time and planning. So while you might not have to pull the credit card out, there will definitely be you or the time of your team leveraged in running it well.
Before you commit to social media, or when assessing its place in your marketing funnel, ensure you are asking yourself how social media stacks up against your other marketing priorities and whether there are other higher value activities you can start with that will take up less time and energy?
3. Which social media platforms should you be using?
Each social media platform differs in the way that content is shared and businesses are represented. To ensure that you get the best return on your efforts, it’s key to choose the right social media platforms for your business. To do this you need to identify where your ideal customers are, and what sort of content you can and should be sharing with them.
If your ideal customers are businesses…
According to the Australian 2020 Yellow Pages Social Media Business Report:
- 90% of businesses use Facebook
- 33% use LinkedIn
- 32% use Instagram
- 25% use YouTube
- 23% use Twitter
- The remaining social media platforms have less than 8% uptake by businesses
What’s this mean for your business? It means that if you are aiming to sell to businesses then you should most definitely be on Facebook, and you should also consider LinkedIn & Instagram.
If your ideal customers are individuals…
According to the Australian 2020 Yellow Pages Social Media Consumer Report:
- 89% of people use Facebook
- 54% of people (predominantly men) use YouTube
- 45% of people (predominantly women) use Instagram
- 20% of people use LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter
- Less than 7% of people use any other social media
Based on the above, if your target audience are women, you’d be pretty safe leveraging Facebook and Instagram, and if your target audience are men, you’d be pretty safe using Facebook and YouTube.
However, the interests of your ideal customer, the products or services that you offer and the sorts of content you have the capacity to create, will also need to be considered when choosing which Social Media platforms you choose to showcase your business.
Facebook is a fantastic tool for almost any business as you can share tips, and updates that are less visually appealing than the likes of Instagram (although visually appealing content will still likely garner more engagement - it isn’t always possible / easy to create this content for all businesses). Many users will leverage Facebook as a research tool as more information about your brand is able to be recorded on it than on many other social platforms - it can in essence be used like a mini website from a content perspective - so if you have a presence, ensure that your contact information is up-to-date and that your business is presented professionally. If consumers are able to purchase online - ensure that you have correctly set up your Facebook shop - an online marketplace on Facebook.
LinkedIn is a professional networking platform, content is generally less visual and more factual. On LinkedIn users are more inclined to read an article or media release than on other social platforms as their intent is different (LinkedIn is a professional tool as opposed to being used for entertainment).
Instagram is a very visual platform, it is fantastic for showcasing your products and if you have an eCommerce store, allows you to link to your products from your photos. Success on Instagram is heavily dependent on great photography and engaging video - and video is the key to ensuring you still garner a healthy organic reach.
If you need assistance in determining whether social media fits within your marketing funnel, determining which social media platforms are right for your business, or what sort of content you should be sharing and when...
