The Benefits of Social Media to Marketers

• People are finding it easier to switch off or ignore traditional advertising, particularly through traditional media environments  such as TV or radio. Social media gives brands the opportunity to interact with customers through targeted communications which customers can choose to engage with on their terms. For example a consumer may visit a branded YouTube channel as opposed to deliberately ignoring advert breaks on television.
• Social media’s potential to go viral is one of its greatest benefits - if users like the content they will share it with their communities.
• Social media allows you to create an online community for your brand and its supporters.
• Social media can tie in nicely with any of your other online marketing tactics - a holistic eMarketing strategy is always the best strategy.
• Social media allows you to engage with an online community and allows you to connect your brand to the appropriate audience.
• Social media has created a forum for brand evangelists. Companies should embrace as well as monitor this as users with negative opinions of your brand have access to the same forum.
• The various platforms allow you to access a community with similar interests to your own - networking without borders.
• The numerous interactions allow you to garner feedback from your communities.
• Feedback from social media sites helps drive both future business as well as marketing strategies.
• The range of media enables you to learn more about your audience’s likes, dislikes, behaviour etc. Never before has this much information been available to marketers - market research just got a whole lot cheaper.
• Niche targeting just got a whole lot easier!

There are huge risks as well as opportunities. Social media facilitates a two-way conversation between customer and company. This necessitates that the company shifts approach from “deploy and watch” to one of constant involvement with the audience.