Why is Social Media So Important Anyway?

[ethelglover]

Hi all forum friends,

Let's discuss Why is Social Media So Important Anyway for today's business?

[Dani]

Because it gives businesses an opportunity to engage with their customers and prospective customers, and learn and understand their needs and wants, in a way that was never achievable before. And it gives customers an opportunity to feel heard by big brands.

[Dani]

The other thing with social media is the low barrier to entry. Anyone with a good idea can produce content and get it in front of the world. Anyone can be a content creator. Social media platforms are just that ... they are platforms that raise people up to be showcased and seen by the world, in a way that was never before conceivable.

[odeskavita]

You can interact with your customers on social media and learn what people have to say about your company. Social media can also be used for easy mobile marketing, giveaways, and advertising.

Your company can benefit a lot from social media in the following ways:

• Enlarge your business reach to include global markets
• Solicit client's input, Entice clients, and foster their loyalty
• Minimize marketing expenses by conducting market research
• Establishing customer networks and advertising to boost sales
• Create your brand, share ideas to improve your company's operations, hire qualified workers, for instance, through job networking sites like LinkedIn, raise website traffic and search engine rankings, and keep a watch on your rivals.

You may not be aware, but you are prepared to launch your company's social media. You are not required to be familiar with all the scary buzzwords or possess the ideal number of followers. You can start right away and even have fun while doing it.

The everyday exposure of brands to customers who regularly log on to social media offers enormous business opportunities. However, it also poses significant difficulties for organizations because it is a dynamic environment that is quite noisy and congested.

[JerryIglesias]

Social media is important because it allows people to communicate and share information with each other more easily than ever before. It also allows businesses to reach out to potential customers and create relationships with them that wouldn't otherwise be possible. And finally, social media can be a great tool for networking, which can lead to new opportunities for career growth or business partnerships.

[Anuraj_1]

Social Media Marketing is very important nowadays. Because social media help to reach a targeted audience for businesses. it also helps to build a relationship between customers. Some reasons why social media is important are as follows:-
1)Quality leads.
2)Build Community.
3)Brand Awareness.
4)Advanced Targeting Options.

[bavya]

Social Media is important to increase the brand awareness and it also helped to increase the traffic of a website.

[Alisha_8]

Social media provides a way for businesses to connect with more potential customers. With over 2 billion active social media users, there is a large potential market for businesses to tap into. Additionally, social media provides businesses with a way to build relationships with their customers. By engaging with customers on social media, businesses can create a more personal connection with them. This can lead to increased customer loyalty and brand awareness. Finally, social media can be a great way for businesses to promote their products and services.

[Dani]

It's interesting that folk think SocMe is a way to connect. I've seen 99% of the scams come across my Facebook/Twitter account. So it is what it is

Sounds to me like the words of someone so stuck in the past they can't appreciate what today's technology has to offer. I interpret your statement to be synonymous with, "It's interesting that folks think anyone can learn anything from TV shows. 99% of things that I tend to disagree with are things that came across my television set. I prefer to live in a silo and get all of my information from my immediate neighbors."

[rproffitt]

I did find a nice old missile silo in Kansas. But my SO knew I was joking. I haven't bought a simple thing off a SocMe campaign and wanted to note how many scams there were there. It's not just me but the folk I know but hey, that could be the circles I'm in.

It doesn't help it when you read what abortion rights groups are spending there.

[Dani]

I think that I took your comment personally because running social media campaigns is my livelihood, as well as the livelihoods of pretty much everyone who posts in this Digital Marketing forum. So it felt kinda like you were walking into our party just to shit on how we earn a living and basically accuse us of being scammers and spammers. Take your rude, negative energy elsewhere.

[becketharper585]

The importance of social media are:

1. The best platform to share information and connect with different people.
2. Enhance the visibility of your business worldwide.
3. Increases the popularity of your product or services.
4. Increases your customers from any location.
5. Improves the ranking of your website.

[melissahowau]

Social media gives your business a platform as large as worldwide and as small as only your city. It is best for every type of business, whether it is international businesses or local businesses. So yes social media is important for businesses.

[rproffitt]

Why isn't anyone here commenting on the multi-BILLION dollar meltdown in Social Media companies like Twitter and Facebook(Meta)?

Advertisers fled Twitter over the nonsense we've seen over the past month. From Forbes:

The metaverse has proven to be an unmitigated disaster for Meta, reporting $9.4 billion in losses in the division year-to-date (2022)

At the moment it looks like Google is the winner.

[Dani]

Because a stock crash as a result of COVID-related ad spend budgets doesn’t affect social media marketing, which is what this thread is about.

[rproffitt]

Elon Musk did impact social media marketing in a huge way. And the story isn't over as the list of those that market on Twitter haven't come back.

As to Facebook, their crash is not COVID related. Just an idea that the company CEO overinvested in and kept doubling down. To the tune of 9.4 Billion dollars. How does COVID play into that one?

[Dani]

I think the impact that Elon Musk will have on Twitter, and the larger social media ecosystem, has yet to be seen. So far he fired a bunch of people, affected the company's stock price, and advertisers bailed. Facebook also laid off a significant portion of its workforce and it's stock price tanked. That's devastating to the employees, companies, and investors, yes, but in terms of the topic of this discussion, the overall importance of social media, I certainly don't think I could say that social media marketing has been impacted in a huge way. Not yet, at least. The fate of Twitter as a company, maybe. But Twitter didn't have a sound revenue model from the very beginning. Social media existed long before Twitter and social media will continue to exist regardless of Twitter's fate. Marketers were making boatloads of money off of Twitter long before Twitter had any sort of revenue model at all.

I think where it gets interesting is if we start seeing new precedents being set in terms of changes to social media platforms' guidelines revolving around freedom of speech, outside of the political/religion/geopolitical/politically correct world. In other words, would no one be allowed to ever mention the brand Adidas anywhere on Twitter for no other reason than because Elon Musk is a Nike fan? In other words, how much control do the people at the helm of a social network have on what can and cannot be allowed to be said?

Take DaniWeb, which is a social network of sorts. People who don't know me, from around the world, sign up. They take the time to contribute and post their thoughts, and engage with other people who don't know me. Yet I, Dani, singlehandedly have 100% final say over what content I allow to exist and what content gets removed. I may allow one third-party link to remain, while deleting another third-party link as spam. That choice was not influenced by anything that the world could rally around (e.g. it's not like Kanye West being banned for being an anti-semite). In fact, the removed link might be for an overall better company than the link that was allowed to remain. While it's worked for 20 years here at DaniWeb, when implemented on a grand scale on the world's stage, that level of dictatorship could certainly influence the future of social media.

As to Facebook, their crash is not COVID related. Just an idea that the company CEO overinvested in and kept doubling down. To the tune of 9.4 Billion dollars. How does COVID play into that one?

Zuck himself said it was COVID related. At the beginning of COVID, as the world was stuck at home and swiftly turned towards technology platforms to communicate, Facebook saw sudden and spectacular growth. Zuck thought that growth was going to be long lasting, which makes sense because we all were forced to use Zoom back in 2020, but now we use it because of the added convenience. We were all forced to use grocery delivery back in 2020, but now we use it because of the added convenience. So Zuck thought that the huge social media surge that happened would continue. Which it did, to some extent. As an online business, it made sense that it wouldn't be negatively impacted when people were suddenly forced to stay home 24/7 with nothing else to do than browse the web. And as the world opened up, people continued to embrace their COVID-found Facebook addictions.

Unfortunately, what also ended up happening was so many businesses were forced to be closed in 2020. And supply chain issues and increasing costs of gas and other things meant lower margins for lots of other businesses, even if they were designated essential and allowed to remain open throughout. That means that in 2021 and 2022, trying to make up for lost revenue, and to close the gap created due to rising costs of goods and manufacturing costs, the first thing many businesses cut was their advertising budgets. Facebook makes money from advertising. Facebook's loss of revenue dollars is directly related to COVID.

[Dani]

Let me put it another way. Up until now, growth and demand went hand in hand. As Facebook grew over the past two decades, demand to advertise on Facebook grew as well. Facebook's traffic growth grew and Facebook's advertising dollars grew.

This is very typical with most web publishers. When DaniWeb used to be super popular and had lots of traffic, I made a lot of money from advertising revenue. Nowadays, DaniWeb isn't really that popular and doesn't have a lot of traffic, and I don't make much money from advertising revenue.

That's just the way it's always been.

COVID created a new never-before-seen dynamic. Facebook grew to soaring new heights. And so did advertising revenue, as brick-and-mortar companies pivoted to focus more online when retail locations were forced to close in 2020. So Facebook saw lots of growth all around.

Then as things start to reopen in 2021, we all realize we're living in a post-COVID world. There's a new normal. Things aren't the same as they were in 2019. I renovated the kitchen of my old apartment in 2013 and it took a few weeks for my appliances to get delivered. I just put a 50% deposit on new appliances for my current kitchen and there's a 1 year waiting list. Gas prices are crazy. We live in a world today where a business can't survive on the same margins it once was able to. So every manufacturing (product-based) business in the world slashed its marketing budget all at once.

Online publishers such as Facebook were in the unique position of having exponential traffic growth translate into significant declines in revenue.

[rproffitt]

The recent debacle at Twitter is not COVID related. It's Elon and soon after the purchase I immediately wondered if car makers would advertise on the Twitter platform. This was easy to see coming.

Since Elon has control over SpaceX, SpaceX bought a rather large ad package from Twitter. If the FTC and feds weren't paying attention before, they are now.

-> About Facebook. While the billions lost on the metaverse is interesting what I'm been meaning to ask is why that Daniweb Facebook page looks inactive. Facebook clicks and such were a big thing. Might still be. Or did that pass into the void?

[Reverend Jim]

I, Dani, singlehandedly have 100% final say over what content I allow to exist and what content gets removed.

Of course, if you were as popular as Facebook or Twitter that would be impossible. The more eyes you can attract the more likely you will be targeted by the same morons that are polluting those platforms. Fortunately you do not have to spend 25 hours a day deciding what is and is not fake news.

Bo Burnham did a marvellous post about social media that is spot on. I can't find the original so I'll try to post the clip here. If that doesn't work I'll try to find a transcript or email it to you.

Video is too big. Here is the audio.

[Dani]

The recent debacle at Twitter is not COVID related. It's Elon and soon after the purchase I immediately wondered if car makers would advertise on the Twitter platform. This was easy to see coming.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the recent goings on with Twitter and Elon have not yet fully played out, and can't quite agree that what's happened so far has had an impact on the overall importance of social media as a whole. Not yet, anyways. I think we're quite aways away from that.

While the billions lost on the metaverse is interesting what I'm been meaning to ask is why that Daniweb Facebook page looks inactive. Facebook clicks and such were a big thing. Might still be. Or did that pass into the void?

I have never managed a Facebook profile for DaniWeb. A former DaniWeb employee created a Facebook page, but it was never really maintained. Years ago, a few different DaniWeb members created and did actively maintain Facebook fan pages, but I was never affiliated with any of them.

The simple answer to your question is that Facebook just isn't an effective marketing strategy for DaniWeb anymore. Facebook is for light reading when you're bored. Facebook feeds are a mix of your friends' personal lives, news articles, clickbait, op-eds, fluff pieces, entertainment stories, etc.

Back when Davey (happygeek) was contributing lots of random news stories, then sure, those would make good Facebook fodder. But without any paid op-ed staff writers nowadays, no one randomly scrolls their Facebook feed when they come across an ad for a programming help forum and thinks they suddenly have a specific programming question they're stuck on that they need answered, and now is an opportune time to take the time to ask it.

[Dani]

Of course, if you were as popular as Facebook or Twitter that would be impossible. The more eyes you can attract the more likely you will be targeted by the same morons that are polluting those platforms. Fortunately you do not have to spend 25 hours a day deciding what is and is not fake news.

The point I was trying to make was not that people post crap on platforms. It's that my small site here is a happy dictatorship, and has been for 20 years, and it's yet to be seen whether Elon is able to successfully set a legal precedent in making such a large platform a well-functioning dictatorship as well.

[Reverend Jim]

Based on Musk's inability to verify accounts so far, and his apparent willingness to let everyone say anything I'm not hopeful. Facebook also just announced that they will not fact-check political posts. Just in time for Trump 3.0.

Heavy sigh

[Reverend Jim]

Musk has also just announced that parody will not be tolerated. So much for his free speech declaration.

[Abinav_1]

Social media allows marketers to interact, connect and engage potential viewers where they are at: LinkedIn, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, and even some of the younger platforms like TikTok. With a strong social media strategy and the ability to create consitance and engaging content, marketers can engage their audience.

[Frenco]

Social media is important because it allows you to reach, nurture, and engage with your target audience — no matter their location. When a business can use social media to connect with its audience, it can use social media to generate brand awareness, leads, sales, and revenue.The power of engagement cannot be understated as a means of strengthening relationships and trust in your brand, and social media is the best .