Whether you are a small business owner, or working at the marketing division of a large corporation – successfully marketing your product requires you to keep up with the latest trends and industry standards. Although traditional forms of marketing and advertising are still viable and useful, the modern approach of using social media has proven to give a wider audience and better results in general.
These are the four dominating platforms on social media at the time of writing this article, according to statista.com:
- Facebook
Within a decade of its first launch, Facebook already had 890 million users, and it is no doubt known well globally. Although usage of the platform is free, the primary revenue source is selling Ads on both the website and it’s mobile application. Thus, those looking for a wide audience will surely employ the use of this market leader. - Youtube
It is a well known fact that Youtube is the second largest search engine, only following Google. Well worth noting is the fact that the trillion dollar tech giant Google bought Youtube in 2006 when the company was still a long way from generating any revenue. Why, you ask? Traffic – Youtube’s has always had a large portion of the internet’s traffic. Surely enough, using AdSense Google managed to turn Youtube’s high traffic into advertising dollars. - Instagram
You may know this as the platform to post photos of your food, or selfie’s of your night out on the town. However, if you pay attention to your Instagram feed – you will realize there are many posts labelled ‘sponsored’ – these are posts from businesses who have noticed that Instagram appeals to the younger generation globally, and like it’s current owner Facebook, it’s revenue comes from ads. - TikTok
Although a good portion of TikTok’s revenue comes from – you guessed it – ads; it isn’t the only way the app makes money. It also earns revenue from brand take-overs and branded hashtags.
How to Use This Information
You may be thinking, well that’s all good and well but how does this help me? A large number of users or a high traffic is not only beneficial for businesses who wish to advertise their products through these platforms – whereby they would pay the platform to advertise for them. Businesses can take the initiative and use the large audience to their advantage, by creating social media accounts on these platforms, and establishing a social media presence. Of course, you will never be able to get every single user on a platform to see your ad – but the larger number of users give your business more exposure to the public and hence a larger audience.
Tips on Marketing Using Social Media
For those looking to establish a social media presence, these are a few tips:
- Post regularly to optimize your page/account for SEO. This helps in that you are always on the user’s (the consumer’s) feed, and hence on their mind.
- Websites like socialgreg.com help you grow your social media presence. With a higher number of followers/subscribers, and more views, you will be able to reach more consumers – the ultimate goal of marketing.
- Create eye-catching content. In this fast paced digital era, you have seconds to grab the attention of the user before they scroll to the next post. If your content is not interesting from the get go, it is completely useless when the user skips it.
With a few simple tricks and knowledge of the state of social media, small businesses and large corporations alike can expose their products and services to a wide audience easily. This is the modern approach to marketing in the age of smartphones.
