It’s been 10 years since Facebook was created. There are some figures that we must take it seriously. It is reported that more than 665 million of active users on Facebook everyday and over 500 million registered accounts on Twitter. In addition, almost 89% of businesses have a delicate social media platform as part of their marketing strategy and 75% marketers reporting positive results in the benefits from social media. Social media has become a lifestyle in this modern society. But why it is so influential? There are three elements we can refer to.
1. Data
In order to reach consumers’ demand and preferences, it is important to have a better and deeper understanding among them before making a marketing plan. Apart from the traditional database which records demographic information from consumers and their purchase history, data from social media enables marketers to discover all the content, time, and location people have written about brands, services or products. Moreover, all the data are profiled by the account registration, which means that marketers would be able to target audience more precisely, effectively, and efficiently. Also, exploiting the stream data from social media could be the best practices for Customer Relationship Management.
2. Audience
Handling a strong social media presence is an efficient way to create brand awareness, to maintain relationships, and to drive new sales. The more audiences we have, the more digital exposure we can achieve. Using social media to deliver instant information in the digital marketplace also creates a virtual one-on-one conversations among consumers, just like discussing in the real time environment. The engagement of consumer would also build a sense of belonging and recognition towards the brand itself; furthermore, brand reputation and trust could be constructed in consumers mind deeply. Apart from all the benefits mentioned previously, the brand community on social media would be able to boost the traffic to the company website and increase the search engine ranking considerably.
3. Profitability
The rate of investment on social media is always highly concerned among the broad level. Apart from other traditional media, the marketing performances on social media are measurable and modifiable. Moreover, it’s a free media. The ROI on social media has been seeing a higher return since a huge number of those impressions were not paid by company itself. It is reported that about 30% of P&G marketing spend goes to digital, social and mobile channels today. Digital allows a very effective and tighter way to customise a message to a consumer. In TV advertising that is going to everybody, but now the marketers can much more carefully target the content to a certain group of audiences through social media platform.
