Social media is an online platform of communication that allows you to interact with customers. The use of social media in the world of business has risen over the past years. It is becoming a majorly used platform as companies use it for advertising and promoting their operations. It is advisable to know the benefits and drawbacks of using social media for your business.
Benefits of Social Media
The following are ways that social media can help your business;
Recruit skilled staff -Through job networking sites, such as LinkedIn, you get to employ or recruit qualified staff to work in your business. That helps the company perform well since they have the right training.
Brand awareness – when you advertise your business through social media, then your brand becomes known to potential customers both locally and internationally as social media is available worldwide. This is because a large percentage of the population in the world uses social media platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, among others.
Do market research – when it comes to marketing, social media plays an essential role in knowing what customers want or prefer. This, in turn, leads to reduced marketing costs.
Know what your competitors are doing – other businesses also use social media to do their marketing activities; you will know what they are up to from the various posts they will make or what people in the social media platform will be saying about your competitors’ product.
Attract customers, get customer feedback and build customer loyalty – as mentioned earlier, a large percentage of the population uses social media; therefore, it means that most potential will be found in these social media platforms and also as you interact with them, you will be able to get immediate feedback which in turn brings about loyalty.
Exchange ideas to improve the way you do business. Social media platforms are full of any information that one may want to access, information that you can use to expand or improve your business.
Educate yourself – social media allows you to learn more about your field of business, the upcoming trends, and the challenges faced, among others. This type of information fully equips you as you engage in your business.
Share your field of expertise – Through social media, you get an opportunity to share what you know, what you are good at, and what you would want to be known for. This helps in marketing your products.
Generate online traffic this is through social advertisements and posts. Also, participating in social chats can attract attention from potential customers as a result of increased visibility. They will be able to read your comments and see what you write about your products or services.
Partner with influencers – you can have friends and family members recommend you to their social media friends who are potential clients; this brings about brand awareness when you find your product being discussed. This boosts your sales in a big way.
Boost sales – the number of people using social media grows each day; this means that the number of customers also increases each day. Therefore, if you manage to sell your products or services through social media platforms, the sales will be high.
Drawbacks of Social Media
Social medial may not be suitable for every business. The following are some of the disadvantages.
Misleading or rather false claims that a customer makes on your social media. A customer can post misleading information, for example, about the products or services provided by the competitor. This can bring out a negative attitude towards your products and services.
Security and privacy policy issues -Risks such as hacking and leakage of information to competitors as one may be forced to post both their public and private information to have many followers who will be potential customers.
Inappropriate behavior such as bullying and harassment can happen on your site.
You need to actively manage your presence in social media to see the real benefits because one needs to be up-to-date as social media changes constantly.
Difficult to measure –measuring marketing effort in social media is difficult as at one point you can have many likes and followers, and you can pinpoint that when it comes to your sales.
It doesn’t work for all groups of people –different groups of people use social media differently; some are totally not found in social media. You can also find that a certain group of people is only active on a certain platform; for example, most teens will be found on Instagram compared to Facebook.
Limited only to social media platforms, unlike where you can use other marketing channels, making you be more flexible rather than social media marketing that is only available and stays in social media. This also becomes a disadvantage to those customers who are not on any social media platform.
Time-consuming –a lot of time is used to understand the online marketing strategies that are most likely to be successful and how they work so that you can implement them.
Wrapping Up
Despite the drawbacks that come along with the use of social media, be prepared for the risk beforehand and having a strategy can help you to overcome them. Having a robust social media marketing strategy will go a long way in helping your business succeed.