Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing in 2021: Grow Your Business Wisely
If you have started your business and have introduced it on the digital market space, you must have considered and came across social media marketing. It is one of the highly popular segments of digital marketing strategies and can be employed to grow your business and build an online presence. Social media marketing can certainly help your business achieve its objectives and goals, however, it is necessary to know all the aspects of this trendy marketing strategy before you employ and invest in it for your business. Here are the pros and cons of social media marketing in 2021 that can help you take the right decisions and make optimal use of your resources:
Social Media Marketing: An Overview
Social media marketing is an aspect of digital marketing that allows you to promote, advertise, generate leads and grow your business with the help of social media websites and platforms. There are many social media platforms, equipped with features and tools that can enhance your marketing strategies and help your business generate revenue. Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are highly popular and are employed by many businesses to reach out to their audiences and create a powerful digital presence. However, here are the points you should consider:
Pros of Social Media Marketing
Cost Effective: Build Your Online Presence From Scratch
If you have a small business and are looking for cost effective ways to establish and grow your presence online, social media marketing can be highly beneficial for your brand. This popular marketing strategy allows you to start small. The social media platforms are completely free to use. You are not charged any fee to reach out to your audiences organically. You are free to target your audiences, study and make use of your analytics and performances, use features and tools without paying any fee to the publisher or the platform. A registration to the social media platforms and content is all it takes to get started with organic social media marketing. This is one of the huge benefits/pros of social media marketing, as even small scale brands and businesses are able to make use of it without subtracting a chunk from their capital and revenue.
Connect With Your Audiences
Social media platforms allow your business to reach out to the audiences, connect and communicate with them on a direct and personal level. Audiences can do the same and reach out and engage with your business. The platforms offer you many features and tools that can be used to know your audiences better and provide them better value. It also allows you to nurture your audiences and push them further down to the sales funnel. The platform is highly personal and facilitates engagement and communication. Social media platforms not only grant you the way to generate high quality leads but you also get to establish beneficial relationships with your audiences and turn them into a foundation of loyal customers that can truly add to the growth and conversion of your business.
Great Brand Awareness and Exposure
Social media platforms present you with a wide pool of audiences. High quality, consistent posts and updates with the right use of keywords and hashtags can grant your business a great visibility and exposure. It is a wide market where the possibilities are endless. Every post on the social media platforms can help your brand get recognition. It also increases your brand awareness. The enormous exposure, brand awareness and reputation can add to the growth of your business and give your firm a jump start. Even if you have a small business, social media marketing can provide you a world wide exposure and expansion.
Cons of Social Media Marketing
Trends and Algorithms
Social media platforms are highly fast paced and unpredictable. The algorithms are continuously changing and altering. A social media post and update can go ‘viral’, become highly popular and increase the reach of the businesses in moments but the success can be ephemeral. Your strategies can work one moment and refuse to give you a satisfactory performance the next. The ever-changing trends are extremely hard to keep with and follow. The tastes and the preferences of your audiences can also differ with time and the recent trends. Your brand and revenue generation is heavily subjected to these factors. The rules and regulations, algorithms, bans and changes can impact the marketing strategy of your business.
Defamation and Negative Publicity
Your brand surely gets to enjoy recognition and visibility with the help of social media marketing, however the platforms also expose your business to negative publicity and serious defamation. Social media can tarnish the image of your brand in a blink of an eye. You might lose control of how your brand is perceived and the image it has created on the platforms. Since it exposes your brand to a wide range of audiences, you cannot protect your business from negative comments and remarks. This can severely direct and influence the decisions of your audiences and impact the image and lead generation of your business. Therefore, it is essential to be cautious while employing social media marketing methods and strategies. It is important for your business to operate and deal with the negative feedback and remarks in a wise manner.
Demands Time and Investment
Social media is free for all to use, the tools and features can benefit your organisation. However, the organic growth and results demand a lot of patience and time. The organic results are not immediate and instant. This can make the growth of your brand quite slow compared to the other marketing methods and channels.
In order to receive faster results, audience reach and growth, you would be required to invest on paid marketing and advertising on social media platforms. The social media platforms are free, yet they come with terms and conditions. Content creation can also be a time consuming process and might require heavy investments. The continuous race to keep up with the trends and producing unique content can prove to be extremely difficult for the businesses. Social media marketing demands high attention and is a strenuously time consuming process. You are always required to watch out for trends, tastes and preferences and competitors.
These are the 6 pros and cons of social media marketing you need to be aware of, before leaping into the trendy digital marketing strategies and methods. It is highly important for you to define the business objectives and know if the social media marketing fits your business appropriately. This digital marketing channel is highly rewarding, if done right. However, you also need to be aware of the drawbacks and employ your strategies accordingly.