Social media marketing is a critical part of any successful company’s marketing strategy in the modern age of the Internet and constant connectivity, but it shouldn’t be your only tool. Social media allows companies to connect to and reach customers across a broad number of users and integrate the company’s products or services in a customer’s lifestyle. Having a diverse set of marketing tools, ranging from the traditional to the most cutting-edge is essentially to being successful in today’s world.

Strengths of Social Media Marketing

Using social networking websites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to promote a company can be an effective yet inexpensive way for a company to market itself. These networks are effective because they provide a bidirectional platform; customers have a direct way to respond to marketing campaigns, allowing companies to receive input and feedback from their target audience. Social media facilitates targeted marketing by only selecting customers with a specific interest, of a certain age group, or other such characteristics that can make the person of interest to a particular company. Social media can also help generate interest for a company’s product, particularly if users share the product information with their friends. We know that even through traditional advertising and marketing campaigns that personal recommendations are the strongest form of product or service referral.

Necessity of a Balanced Marketing Mix

As effective as social media is at certain aspects of marketing, it is not without its limitations. First, it’s hard for companies to measure the return that social media gives them for the cost of marketing without hiring an outside company to review the analytic information. For some companies this can be too costly. Secondly, social media networking websites are most effective as a promotional tool for products and reaching a broad audience, but it can be hard for business owners to quantify social media success into sales for brick and mortar businesses. For example, 1000 Facebook likes does not automatically result in 1000 new customers. Business owners should be prepared to be creative and implement traditional marketing know-how into a social media marketing campaign. For example, think outside the box. Instead of offering your customer 10% off their purchase for liking you on Facebook or checking-in at your business on Facebook, offer them 20% off for writing a recommendation or answering a question on your Facebook page. Why? It is more engaging and helps facilitate that personal referral which is so crucial. Social media is a great way to reach a new audience, but it is only one step in the marketing mix.

You can do social media marketing on your own, but it often helps to have a team by your side to help you navigate the ups and downs and maximize the dollars you spend. We help companies large and small spend their time and money strategically to increase the effectiveness of their campaign. Give us a call and let us see how we can help you!