Millions of cash-strapped, small businesses have discovered that they can increase their brand’s visibility and save money by taking advantage of the benefits of social media marketing. Social media has taken the world by storm. And what started out as just a digital way to stay in touch with friends and family and discuss current topics with like-minded gatherings of individuals, has blossomed into a useful marketing tool for small and large businesses.
With everyone from McDonald’s and Coca-Cola to your local corner shop taking advantage of what social media marketing offers, it’s becoming a major advertising and marketing platform throughout the world.
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Targeting Potential
Different social media platforms offer different types of ad placement and targeting features. But the core nature of social media as a community-oriented medium can work to brand’s advantage, particularly if most of their customers are regional.
Facebook, for example, offers targeting by region, gender, age group and interest. By using these targeting categories to your advantage, you can quickly place an ad for your products that is as broadly or narrowly defined as you want.
Instagram’s social media marketing platform offers video and photo formats that are perfect for marketing products that depend on visual appeal, like clothing and fashion accessories.
YouTube has become the go-to platform for creatively produced, low-cost video ads that explain your brand’s products and services to a wide audience.
Inexpensive Alternative
With the pay-per-click (PPC) business model of Google and Bing search engines threatening to cut smaller businesses out of digital marketing altogether because of their pricey costs, social media platforms realised there was an opportunity to offer lower-cost advertising on their own platforms.
Sure, it may not have the reach of billions of users. But by keeping advertising costs low, it immediately appealed to millions of large and small businesses who recognised the distinct advantages of using social media marketing to reach their regional target customers. Smaller brands also didn’t have to worry about being overrun with so many orders their brand reputations would suffer if they used the PPC ad model. Social media platforms, almost overnight, became a popular and viable, low-cost alternative to search engine advertising.
Social Media Platforms Are All Aboard
Today, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube all offer targetable advertising platforms. LINE is an Asian multi-service social media platform that is still gaining traction in Malaysia. But it’s wildly popular in Thailand and Japan, its country of origin. And LINE Ad is the latest platform to hop on the social media marketing bandwagon.
Harness the Power of Social Media
With so many platforms offering cheap and plentiful advertising, social media looks to be the logical choice for many brands, both large and small, for years to come. But with so many sales channels being offered, taking advantage of all of them can be a challenge.
Digital marketing agencies are excellent sources of much-needed help. They can help you create a marketing strategy and set up multiple campaigns that take full advantage of the benefits of this rapidly growing branch of digital marketing.
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