Advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing – When you start your journey in the digital world, one of the questions you ask yourself is how to promote your content and make yourself known.
And you have invested several hours in creating a fantastic post, a great service, or launching a new info product.
The answer to the question in the title of the post is doing social media marketing strategies.
SEO also helps, and a lot, but it is a medium-term strategy that, in the long run, ends up being one of the most important, along with email marketing.
Social networks are a fast and direct way to interact with your audience.
They are a loudspeaker for your message.
In addition, the connection established in networks is special. If you are authentic, people will connect with you and you will forge a relationship. That is the beginning of having more followers, more subscribers, and more customers.
Some of them will become prescribers for your brand. They will be so grateful that they will promote you everywhere. If they are honest and have some visibility, they will bring you, clients.
For your social media presence to be productive, you need to create a social media marketing strategy. And run it, of course.
Let’s start with the beginning.
What is social media marketing?
It is the communication with your audience through social networks. It is a two-way and peer-to-peer communication , although the leading voice is carried by the content creator.
Social Media consists of reaching the public that interests me and when I am interested, through social networks to establish a relationship.
This is all very well, but it is not always easy.
The magic of social media marketing is reaching new audiences, establishing a relationship with them, and turning many people into customers.
It is important to know that you are not addressing everyone or that everyone is going to buy from you. There will be people who establish a relationship with you, who follow you and speak well of you, but who never buy from you.
This is life.
And it better be that way, because if everything were easy it would be very boring.
Also, having many clients is fine but you have to have the ability to deliver your services to all of them. If not, you will die of success.
If you get to this point, you will have to delegate. For this, it is essential that you have everything documented in a process manual.
Therefore, social networks can help you grow your client portfolio considerably, as long as that is what interests you.
Advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing
Now we are going to see what are the advantages of social media marketing and (what can become) its biggest disadvantage.
It is only one thing, but it can be decisive.
PERSONAL BRAND
Social media is a great way to build your brand.
The personal brand is extremely important on the Internet. If you want to sell, you need to create your brand.
If I started selling a natural therapy service right now, I wouldn’t even buy it.
Why?
Because I have no brand.
Or rather, I have a brand but it is not associated with that sector.
Creating your personal brand is not something that can be done from one day to the next, nor does it only involve social networks. All your channels come into play (web, social networks, mailing list, etc.) and the regular post you keep doing, your creativity of fancy fonts helps you in post. “Your brand is what they say about you when you are not present”, Jeff Bezos.
LEADS OR PROSPECTS
If you’re on social media, it’s not to hang out or see memes.
Your presence in social networks must have one objective: to grow your business.
It is proven that a person needs several impacts to take action, whether it is to buy or subscribe to your blog. Therefore, social networks also have an indirect benefit that cannot be quantified.
Now, having a following is fine but the reach of your posts is limited. The blissful algorithms allow only a small percentage of them to see them.
In addition, users belong to each social network, so if it closed tomorrow, you would lose contact.
Therefore, I always emphasize the importance of the mailing list.
So you already know. If you’re not, devise a strategy to capture your followers’ emails. For example, offer a lead magnet (or several) to your audience.
In this way, you add value to your audience and capture their email.
All happy.
WEB TRAFFIC
Another important advantage is the traffic you gain on your website thanks to your profiles.
Generally, it will not be very big, but there will be people who know you through the networks, so quantity is not as important as quality.
If you do a good job in networks, the traffic you receive from them will be qualified, that is, people really interested in what you offer.
This will increase the conversion rates and, if you capture the lead, it will fill your list of very valuable subscribers.
For this to be the case, it is important that you do not make false promises in networks or abuse clickbait, which is the strategy of putting eye-catching titles to attract clicks and that do not correspond to the content (be it a post or a video).
Two of the most important platforms from which you can bring in a good amount of traffic are Instagram and YouTube.
WEB POSITIONING (SEO)
Social networks favor the organic positioning of your website.
And, as we have seen, you can capture visits to your website from your profiles. That Google takes into account, since it interprets that your project generates interest.
It is what is known as social traffic.
Social traffic is included within referral traffic, that is, from other websites. These can be other blogs, forums, or social networks.
Also, you generate inbound links to your website. Obviously, they do not have the same value as a link from another web page but it all adds up.
Being qualified traffic, visitors spend more time on your website, which increases the time of permanence, another factor that Google values positively.
Therefore, social networks improve web positioning.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI)
Here’s the thing. Social networks provide many things but they also require a significant investment of time.
And maybe some money too. Either because you have hired someone or because you use a payment tool, it is common for a few euros of your budget to go to your marketing on social networks.
Social networks consume two main resources: time and money.
They are much cheaper marketing tools than others, especially when compared to traditional media, but they have a cost.
And it must be taken into account.
Here it is important to have objective (followers, reach, leads, visits) and subjective data.
As we have seen, not everything is quantifiable on social networks but it is not good to spend the day trying to get one more follower.
Find the balance between investment and return to make your social media marketing strategies work. I hope you liked the article Advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing.
Read also – What Is Digital Marketing?