Social Media has grown up into one of the strongest digital marketing tool from being a useless digital channel. It is being used for the marketing of different brands and businesses. It is also considered as a cost effective way that is used by numerous business for their promotion and advertising purpose. The advertising can be done in a most organized and as wanted, that it has lead different businesses to increase the budget of marketing through Social media during the next five years. Nowadays, a number of businesses are using Social Media Marketing(SMM) bandwagon. But there are many businesses that are not aware of the effectiveness or result of Social Media Marketing(SMM) on their business and products. In reality, there can be two results that businesses can get by using SMM. Firstly, you can get a profitable and successful business if it is done properly and efficiently. Otherwise, the Social Media Marketing(SMM) can result in damaging your business worth and you may get some negative results that may be harmful for your business. Some of the positive and negative aspects of Social Media Marketing(SMM) are discussed below:
The Advantages of Social Media Marketing
Cost Effectiveness
This is the major advantage of Social Media Marketing that appeals the businesses to go for it. Many popular social media channels are free and you can freely interact with your audience.
Social Media Marketing caters a Big Audience: Another advantage of SMM is that it has the potential to reach an unlimited number of audience apart from the traditional marketing tools. This helps in bring out more exposure to the businesses. With the use of SMM you can reach out to people without having gender, age, social status or geographical limitations.
Quick Response
Social Media Marketing is considered the fastest way of promoting your business or share important information to your audience. By synchronizing your website your users can also get automatic updates or current information at once.
Faster Generation of Engagement
Social Media is a great platform where you can interact with your audience. It is an important aspect that business should maintain long term relationship with their followers in order to flourish their businesses. This can be easily done with the help of Social Media.
Brand Loyalty is Nurtured
A healthy interaction with your audience plays an important part in the success of business. With this simple tool, you can build your brand loyalty. In this way your audience will think that you do care for them which will help in building a long lasting relationship with them.
Customer Service is more easily accessible
With the use of Social Media, it has become easy for the customers to interact and give their feedback regarding any brand or to the company. Here they can give their suggestions, comments and views regarding the product or business. This can lead to an effective interaction and positive results for business promotion.
The Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing
Everything in this world have both its positive as well as negative aspects. Even the Social Media Marketing has its negative aspects too which have its effects on your business
Requires Time to Execute
Social Media Marketing is a time consuming activity. As some research reports suggest that a large number of users have to spend maximum time on the Social Media Websites in order to attract users. For example, the industry reports tells that almost 64% of digital market users spend around 6 hours on the Social Media Marketing. Similarly, on the other hand around 37% of users spend ap to 11 hours on Social Media Marketing. Apart from this, even if you spend as much time your SMM efforts will go waste if you have not done it correctly. If you have not provided the relevant content, it will lack in attracting a large number of audience.
Might Attract Spammers and Internet Trolls
Another negative aspect of Social Media Marketing is that you never know what type of audience you have. It can attract all types of audience including the good or bad. This dangerous audience may include the spammers, scammers, trolls, and many other types of harmful users or individuals who are harmful for your reputation that you have created online.
The Tendency to Go Viral Overnight
Anything you post or publish on the social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ etc. It takes no time to go viral and spread instantly like a wildfire in the internet world. If you get positive feedback from your audience, then it can be beneficial for you. Otherwise, it can have disastrous results because you do not have control on the information or post that you have published once because it get available for everyone immediately. It can also include negative and harmful aspects too. This information can be easily used against you. For example, it can be used to criticize you or to spread false information in order to affect your online reputation.
ROI is Not Defined
ROI is an important part of any business. According to a research, around 89% of digital marketers want to know the ROI for the efforts they have made on the social media through Social Media Marketing(SMM). Around 37% marketers can calculate the results of the Social Media marketing. But 35% of them are probably not sure about measuring the ROI accurately. Finally, 28% marketers do not even know how to calculate ROI.
The Social Media Marketing results cannot be calculated accurately. Although the SMM delivers you some positive results that are useful for your business. Some good practices can bring you positive results. But on the other hand, it may lead to some malicious and harmful results. The trick of the trade is to use the best features and let go of the ones that doesn’t suit you. You can use the low budget feature if you have limited budget for social media advertising but have to steer clear of the expectation that it will get you the 100% ROI. So you need to conduct thorough research before investing in SMM.