Thanks to modern technology, today every company can have direct communication with their potential customers. The business sector can use a wide range of communication to attract customers. In Georgia, for example, one of the integral components is social media, a significant part of our lives.
Social media became a fundamental part of modern human life just a few years ago. Today, it helps us connect with the world, socialize with a wider audience, and, most importantly, make decisions. As of 2021, online advertising is used by 48.66% of companies worldwide – with social media in the first place with 86 percent, followed by display advertising (80%).
The Benefits of Social Media
Compared to traditional media, the advantages of social media are pretty significant: user-friendly interface, speed, personalized advertising, low price, etc.
In addition, it has many exciting features to run a business or advertising to establish a close emotional connection between the target audience and the company.
According to Geostat, these are the purposes of using social media in Georgia in 2020:
- To develop the image of the enterprise or its market – 25.1%
- Answers to questions, views, and feedback – 22.9%
- Involvement of customers in creating a new product or innovative development – 10.4%
- Hiring employees – 14.2
The essential component of social media is a huge advertising potential to target people with their interests and basic information. Both retirees and teenagers can see the advertisement in the magazines about warm underwear. But on social media, this message can be delivered to 60+ aged people much more quickly and, most importantly, cheaper.
You can select and rearrange the target audience of any business into smaller groups: age, country of residence or city, language, and gender. An algorithm can group specific people’s interests, preferences, or desires and offer optimized ads for them.
Other tools determine consumer behavior, such as how many people view a certain post, what has the most feedback, or what trends are observed in competing companies.
Similar detailing gives close to accurate results for long-term reporting. In addition, when people encounter exciting posts on a social network, they naturally engage in interactions – they start giving feedback to companies, which further increases their awareness.
Risks and Disadvantages
The social networks, along with a lot of benefits, have a little gray area as well. Each post relies on people’s interpretations from beginning to end. So they can also change the context or circumstances of advertising campaigns to suit their personal ideas.
It is also believed that social media works well when raising awareness, but often, the statistics and data don’t lead to actual sales. The reason is simple: quite many internet users have a fake profile, or despite their activity, do not buy a product or service at all.
When we talk about fake profiles, it’s hard not to mention bots who post and write comments and respond to ad campaigns. This inflated data complicates reporting. In some cases, this engagement may positively affect video viewing, post sharing, or photo emotions. However, in the long run, it complicates gathering accurate information when it comes to actual sales.
As a Conclusion
Research has shown that visual content has extreme power as it evokes emotions in people more than texts. Consequently, social networks where images or videos are uploaded are likely to be used more actively in planning various social media marketing campaigns soon.
Today, in the age of access to information, 79% of the world’s population has access to television, and 59.5% have access to the Internet. Active use of social media is necessary for a business to build a loyal customer base to offer new or existing products.
Modern, effective communication involves using social networking or traditional media to get maximum business results.
