What Types of Marketing Does My Business Need? Part 2: Social Media
Social Media Marketing
The following is a graph showing Google’s volume of searches for “social media marketing”, compared to “TV advertising” just as an example, over the last five years. Social media marketing has recently been increasing in popularity (minus the dips between Christmas and New Year’s), while TV advertising has slowly been losing ground. Google Trends. Not only are more people incorporating this social media marketing strategy into their businesses, but some of these people could be, and probably are, your own competitors.
Not all businesses have begun to take advantage of these opportunities; social media popped up suddenly and is thought by some to be an unprofitable, passing fad. However, after looking at some stats, more businesses might want to rethink this potential business-grower:
- Average daily time spent online is about two hours, and one third of that time is used for messaging and social networking.
- 97% of 16-64 year olds who use the internet say they’ve visited or used a social media platform within the last month.
- More than half of these people use more than one platform between Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Facebook, the majority using Facebook.
- Facebook has 1.23 billion daily active users
-
- Posts with videos, photos, or links are the most successful
- While Facebook has the most members, YouTube has slightly more visitors
- Pinterest boasts two billion searches per month, the majority coming from women.
- 25% of US adults use LinkedIn and 21% of US adults use Twitter
Ok, so plenty of people are using these platforms, but exactly which ones are the most relevant for your business? In some instances all of the popular ones can be used, depending on the various audiences a business might be targeting.
The social of all socials, the crème de la crème. Young people use this more often, but older internet users are increasing in number – on up to 62% of online users that are 65 years old+! Facebook has been expanding their ad platform allowing for great audience targeting, where you can target nearly any industry out there and expect some sort of success. Visual or nonvisual, as long as you have something to talk about, something to offer that’s of value to someone out there, and you think you’ll have a better/cheaper reach than on Google’s ad platform, it’s worth at least an experiment.
Widely used by the younger population (59% of online users age 18-29 vs 33% of online users age 30-40), and about 12% more women use the platform over men. This is mainly a visual platform, so your business may benefit if you have something visually exciting to share on a regular basis. Don’t be afraid to get creative – people love a good laugh. Take Denny’s Tumblr account for example.
This has become a source for the most up-to-date breaking news, though continues to be more popular with the younger crowd (36% of internet users ages 18-29 use Twitter vs 10% of internet users who are 65+). More college graduates use this than those without degrees. Messaging here is limited in length to just a phrase or sentence, so if you have quick snippets to share, quotes, news, sales, try it out.
This is a widely used professional network which attracts college graduates and higher income earners. Longer form content finds more success here than other platforms. This can be of use for B2B and B2C companies in a variety of ways, from attracting leads from relevant companies, to selling continuing education and skill-building programs.
This remains popular for visual content, but is used twice as much by women than men. If your business has products or services that benefit from being seen, it may be beneficial to start pinning some great photos for everyone to “ooo” and “ahh” and become a lead!
If you’d love to get started with your social media marketing and presence but don’t think you can devote the necessary time to learning each platform, creating content, posting, and networking, feel free to contact K-Kom and we will be happy to help your brand out!
“OK Google: social media marketing companies near me!”
