Why your company needs social media marketing, even if you think it doesn’t

Before I even start this blog I know that you’re just going to think I’m biased towards the benefits of social media marketing, because that’s my job, but trust me when I say that your company needs to invest in social media advertising, even if you think it doesn’t. Here are my (completely unbiased) reasons why.

Reach, reach, reach and more reach

The most fundamental of benefit of social media marketing is the sheer volume of users. In the UK are there 45 million active social media users and it just keeps growing! This figure is up 2.3% from 2018. That means that 67% of the UK population are active on social media. Breaking that down into channels, Facebook has the biggest audience of 40m, LinkedIn has 27m and Instagram has 24m. Remember, this is only in the UK. 

Regardless of how niche your customer base is or whether you don’t think social media would work for your company, 67% of the UK population are active on social media! You cannot tell me at least some of your audience aren’t on there. And, if they are on there, the likelihood is that your competitors are on there too and are monopolising the advertising space.

It’s really really targeted (anyone remember Cambridge Analytica?)

There are different aspects of Facebook advert targeting, but interest based and custom audiences are the key. Interest based is the bread and butter of targeting, with demographics such as age, gender, city – standard targeting basics. But it also goes more in depth – if you really want to target someone who’s in a long distance relationship, an expat living away from home, using an iPhone 8, works at Tesco, interested in finance and close friends with someone who’s birthday is in August, you really can. It can become that granular. Why is this an incredible tool for your business? Create your buyer persona, put it into Facebook, et voila. You’re hitting your target audience. 

Custom audiences are even more important for your business. Using Facebook’s website integration tools, you can target anyone that has been on your website, someone who added an item to cart but abandoned it, someone who visited a certain page on your website, and the list goes on and on. You can use this to create the perfect retargeting funnel. Target people for brand awareness, get people onto your website, then target them again with another more sales focused advert and you’ve more than likely got yourself a sale.

Name me another advertising platform where you can be THIS targeted? 

It’s relatively cheap

Naturally, the more advertising budget you have, the more you’re going to get out of your marketing campaign. However, when compared to traditional advertising forms such as TV advertising, social media adverts are a fraction of the price. The creative tools available within Facebook alone can make content creation really simple. Or there’s great free tools out there for creating graphics or animations, like Canva. Of course, if you have access to a graphic designer or videographer, that’s great! But the point I’m making is that there are multiple ways around that that will make social advertising even more cost effective.

The results speak for themselves

The results from social media advertising can be incredible! You can get a cost per landing page view (‘meaningful’ website visit) for as little as £0.05, and even lower if you hire a really experienced and skilled social media agency (shameless plug). Doing the maths, if you spend £1,000 on a website traffic advert, you could be sending 20,000 people to your website. And that is only paid traffic! If you also invest in organic social media, you’re also reaching people for free! 

You can track every possible result on social media adverts too. Want to know how many people saw your advert, visited your website and then clicked on the ‘contact us’ button? Done. Want to know how many people watched 25% of your video advert? Done. Want to know how many people added items to their cart of the back of your advert? Done!

If you don’t get on board, you’re going to be left behind

Social media is growing and growing and it shows no sign of stopping. There’s a reason that most of the biggest companies in the world are tech based and the majority of high street brands are failing. We cannot get enough of being online. You might be seeing steady results from traditional forms of marketing, word of mouth and reputation, but as the world of marketing is ever changing, you need to keep up. The best way to keep up? Make the most of every form of digital marketing there is. Don’t become that outdated company that ‘used to be good’ but hasn’t kept up with the times (Take BHS as an example).

If I’ve still not convinced you by the end of this blog that you need to invest in social media marketing, feel free to come into the office for a chat and I’m sure I could continue this rant even further. If I have managed to convince you, let’s have a chat too! Call us on 0161 327 2635 or drop us an email.