Advantages of using social media

Thursday 26 September 2013

Social media present great marketing opportunities for businesses of all sizes. You can use social media to:

Social media marketing has many advantages:

broad reach - social media can reach millions of people all around the world
ability to target particular groups - many forms of social media (e.g. Facebook, Foursquare) allow businesses to target specific groups, often in particular locations
free or low-cost - many forms of social media are free for business, and paid options are usually low-cost
personal - social media allow you to communicate on a personal basis with individual customers and groups
fast – you can quickly distribute information to many people
easy - you don't need high-level skills or computer equipment to participate in social media. The average person with a standard computer should have no difficulty.

Risks of using social media

Of course, marketing through social media also has its risks. These include:

wasted time and money for little or no tangible return
the rapid spread of the wrong kind of information about your business (e.g. incorrect information accidentally posted by you, negative reviews posted by others)

It's important to be aware of these risks and to have strategies in place to avoid them if you decide to get involved in social media marketing.

Different types of social media are good for different marketing activities. The key social media services are:

Facebook - a social networking site that allows you to have conversations with customers, post photos and videos, promote special offers, and more
Twitter - a 'micro-blogging' service that allows you to send and receive short messages from customers and potential customers
YouTube - an online video-hosting service that lets people share their videos
blogs - internet sites that contain a series of entries or 'posts' about topics of interest to the author, much like an online 'diary'