Social Media Marketing: The Future of Marketing

Social Media Marketing is a part of online marketing and includes the strategic planning and operational use of social media to achieve marketing goals. A particular core aspect of social media marketing is the interaction of users with advertising content and forms of advertising. Often so-called viral marketing, i.e. the spreading of marketing messages of a brand by passing them on between users in their personal social groups, is closely linked to this.

How high is the benefit of social media for companies?

Social networks serve to establish a social, i.e. personal relationship with customers. In social networks you can emotionalize messages very strongly, even if your company otherwise sells little emotion. For example, use pictures to present your team, your production or your company. People are curious by nature and would like to take a look behind the scenes.

Moreover, the potential for successful advertising on social media is immense — via social networks you can increase your reach, inform your customers more efficiently and benefit from the opportunities for acquiring new customers.

If it turns out that your content offer is discussed on social media, you have to decide whether you want to have your say — and thus actively engage in social media marketing.

Here are six advantages that show the importance for modern successful marketing.

1. Little effort with a large reach

Social media marketing helps companies build a community of customers and prospects. And compared to online advertising with Google AdWords, advertising in social networks can be more sustainable- even a small and well planned campaign on Facebook can mean 100 new followers.

You can present new products to your users regularly — and not just once. Although this is not a purchase guarantee, the reach is growing steadily. A classic Google AdWords campaign, on the other hand, leads to a short-term increase in the number of visitors, but the long-term effectiveness is often lower.

Use the possibilities and build a community — enthusiastic customers will even share your products and recommend them to friends.

2. Advertise simply and systematically

Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms integrate numerous statistical tools that help you analyze your campaigns. At a glance you can see among other things such as how many followers have been added in a certain period, which product was liked the most, which contributions achieve the greatest reach etc. In this way you can measure the success of your campaign and learn more about the popularity of your own products, and thus adjust your strategies accordingly.

Always create two advertisements in parallel where one feature is different and compare the results. This is the best way for you to learn what goes down well with your users and you can design your ads even better in the future.

3. Use social media for better customer support

The communication possibilities of social media platforms are ideal for customer support — answer customers’ questions quickly and in a friendly manner, make them happy and often even thank them with a “Like” or share the content, which further increases the reach, which is a clear advantage over a classic hotline.

4. Recommendations promote sales immensely

Recommendations and shared content spread automatically, and is ideal for all advertisers. Customers communicate with you and about your company through hashtags and comments, blogs are filled and links to your social media pages are added.

5. Use possible viral effects

Social media users prefer to share quotes, pictures and videos. Use this to your advantage. With the right advertising, you can create a viral marketing effect — a dream come true for all advertisers.

6. Use social media for social recruiting

The shortage of skilled workers poses challenges for many companies. They have to assert themselves against competitors. A good image and presence in the social media can help. Not only potential customers, but also potential new employees use social networks, which is why publishing job advertisements on the platforms is a good idea. With this modern way of personnel marketing, you are guaranteed to attract qualified professionals to your company.