Social media marketing is a digital marketing strategy leveraging social media tools to promote a product or service. That’s why businesses like IPA Applications and professional services like True Medspa Center use social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook, while others like Total Paving may depend on digital assistants such as Siri or Alexa to generate awareness of the product.

Social media has been part of mankind’s history since the invention of writing, and even before that. In recent years, it has become a business tool for companies like Microsoft and IBM to promote their products, services and ideas on social media platforms in order to attract potential customers through engaging content and conversations.

Why do you need social media marketing

1. Social media provides quick, easy and low-cost channels

Todd Baer runs the marketing for Witkowski Dental and also for Bodytech Total Fitness and notes “Because social media is free and easy to use, you can use it globally without paying fees. You can even do it without having a business organization and start right away. You can create your own social media account using your personal email address instead of a company email address. Your posts will always be accessible on the Internet forever. Social media marketing is also used by small companies with limited resources. It is usually affordable because Facebook followers or Twitter followers are easily obtained and can be purchased for quite a low price by large corporations in bulk.”

2. It helps you get noticed

It enables your product or service to be visible in a short time. Businesses like Elderwerks know that it attracts potential customers to check out your product or service and discover your existence. Your page will be viewed by many people and can even gain more followers if the content is interesting, informative and/or entertaining. With an adequate advertising budget, you will have high chances of getting noticed because social media channels are targeted towards specific demographics. You also have the chance of getting noticed by experts who are highly active on social media such as bloggers, vloggers and podcasters.

3. It boosts brand awareness

It has huge potential to increase brand awareness and improve your company’s reputation. Some companies use social media to connect with their potential customers, create a good image and even create a fan base that becomes a support for your new products and services. For example, bookmakers can use social media to advertise their products and services. Similar to the novel way of using Facebook, they can create posts of their reviews on books or other content related to betting. This will generate more clicks or impressions and will put them in the front page of Google search results when people are looking for information on betting.

4. It increases brand visibility

Stan McGruden runs the website for Gift Check Program and notes “It is used as a marketing tool to get more visibility. You can even create a fan page or vlog to promote your company and gain more followers, likes and shares. The most popular social media channels have viral page content that can go viral, increasing popularity. Social media has certain methods for influencing opinion and get people talking about a certain topic, therefore brands can use social media to increase the recognition of their brand in the public eye.”

5. It enables you to retain customers

Social media allows users to communicate with their customers positively and efficiently without the need for a third-party intermediary (e.g., salesperson). This helps to build and retain a customer base. With social media, you can directly interact with your customers or followers. They will be able to share their opinion with you instantly, which enables you to check the level of satisfaction of customers and improve on ways on how to satisfy them better. This method is also good for finding out who are your best customers as it shows their interests, preferences and trends.