Strategies and Tips for Using Social Media as a Marketing Tool

 Social Media for Marketing

In today's society, social media is growing at a rapid pace with many different platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X, Snapchat, TikTok, and many others platforms. People from many different ages are using social media for many different reasons. Teens use social media for trends and sports. Young Kids use it for learning or entertainment, and elders most often use it to chat with their friends and family or get updated about daily news. Overall, Social media is something any can use and anyone has access to. However, today we are going to talk about some tips and strategies for using social media in marketing. 

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Determining what Social Media Platforms are Right for Your Business

When determining what social media platforms are right to use for your business, there are many factors that come into play, such as how your target audience spends time online, the platforms you personally like, how many platforms you can afford to use, and the platforms that would work best for your business. This blog will be talking about how to pick the right social media platform and then how to integrate it. All of these steps are from the business.com

For example when looking at how many elderly people use the internet, businesses can find data just like I did. According to Amie Clark, a writer for the senior list, she says that " 59 percent of seniors are active internet users, which means almost 32 million older adults are using the internet...". Now this is just an example of elderly people, but it really depends on what your target audience is and it varies, just like the younger audience is most likely 10x more than elderly people. Figuring out where you audience spends time is the first crucial step to figure out what social media platforms are right for the business. 

The next step is considering platforms that you like personally. This is another crucial step in determining what social media platforms are appropriate for your business. Now this step really depends on the size of the business, but is still very important. If you run a small business, you need to ask yourself a few questions. Such as what is my own favorite social media platform, how much time do I spend on it, how many connections do I have, and would it be a good place to advertise? Answering these questions for a small business is perfect because it will most likely give you the social media platform to use and you will be very comfortable with using that website. Now when looking at a bigger business. You have to find something more professional, such as LinkedIn. While big businesses can use more popular websites, such as TikTok, it is more professional and will most likely have a better effect on them, if they stick to the classic professional social media platforms that were made for businesses. 

After figuring out the main social media platform you want to use, you need to figure out if you are able to run more than one platform. This all depends on many different resources and factors. If it is a small business, then you most likely will only be able to run one maybe 2 platforms, but a big company normally has a marketing team and they are able to use data and research to determine how many platforms they are able to run. 

Overall, there are many different ways to figure out which platform or platforms are best for your business, but this is a simple guide that can help guide that. 

Looking at how to apply social media to marketing

According to the business news daily, "Social media is a daily meeting place for billions of people. So, if your business doesn’t have a social media presence, you’re missing out on some serious face time with potential customers" this is due to the fact that social media is growing so fast in this world.
When looking at how to use social media for marketing there a few steps businesses need to follow. First is learning to craft a media marketing strategy, this includes the steps I mentioned earlier. Next business have to learn to create a content calendar, which determines when the business will post on social media and how often they will do it. Next is having a clear and simple message in your social media because that will draw more people to your business, instead of a message that is too complicated. Businesses need to have social media that is eye catching because that is what draws their attention. With this businesses have to be authentic with their messages. The social media platform is representing the business and thats how people will view the business. Lastly, and most importantly is to have fun with social media don't be boring, make it entertaining, and have a blast with it. This will make it more entertaining with their consumers and future consumers as well. 

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My Thoughts on businesses using social media for Marketing

For me personally, businesses using social media for marketing is a great way of them showing innovation as well as adaptability. Businesses that are able to innovate their company into having social media platforms can be a huge game changer for them and give them a big competitive advantage over companies that are not doing this yet. This is due to the fact that social media is growing at such a rapid rate with everyone around the world and soon, most people will only find businesses through advertisement on social media. Additionally, this shows adaptability in businesses to, because they some businesses are able to completely redesign their marketing strategies and shift towards social media which takes a lot of resources such as time and money and research. Overall, marketing through social media is going to be a very popular trend for companies within the future.