Pros and cons of social media marketing

Pros and cons of social media marketing (SMM)

Initially, social media was just a platform where people used to socialize, communicate, and get entertained. But gradually, it has become the most impactful medium for marketing any business. This is because social media marketing has proved itself to be really effective over time.

This has caused a shift in the traditional style of marketing. There were days when television, newspapers, magazines, or billboards were used as a medium to market anything. But now, most businesses are investing in social media marketing.

Webinars and Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a tool that different social sites like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and others sites use to propagate businesses. However, like everything else in the world, there are some proper ways and rules of social media marketing which must be followed so that the results can be more impactful.

SMM is an attraction these days, and many brands and small businesses are jumping into it without any preparation, which can get them in hot waters. However, social media marketing is not all about good things. It has some thorns attached to it, which you must be aware of.

Here we have gathered some major pros and cons of social media marketing.

Let’s get to know them,

Pros of social media marketing

Cost-effective

Every business wants to save money and increase profit margins. So they look for cost-effective and impactful platforms, and social media marketing is one of them. Initially, all major social sites were free to use. But there are options to pay for advertisements, and the amount is quite minimum. You can run ads on a Youtube video or boost a post on Facebook.

Being cost-effective has attracted a lot of small businesses toward using social media marketing tools because traditional marketing costs a lot of bucks, and they do not afford that. The best way is to hire an expert who knows social media marketing tactics rather than putting all money to waste by attempting it yourself.

Larger audience

One of the most attractive things about social media marketing is the number of people it can target. Around 6 million people use social media in some form. It means a brand can select its target audience from such a large number of users and can derive traffic to its landing page.

It’s an attraction for both B2B and B2C companies. They can run their advertisements and target the audience based on gender, age, and demographics. Like to target the audience of 18-24, the marketer will prefer to use Snapchat as they mostly use it.

Social media marketing tools and AI-powered software have made advertising easier in front of your target audience.

A quicker way to reach an audience

There is no need to wait long to see your ad in a newspaper or TV channel. Social media is the quickest way to reach an audience. Here an idea clicked in your mind, and the other moment you execute it and post it on the website, on social media, or talk about it at a webinar meeting.

As we know, webinars are one of the most excellent tools to promote your product or business. However, you can use social media to boost your webinar attendance.

Your advertisement or marketing message is just a click away from the audience. If a brand is to launch a new product, social media can bring it on “trending” within a matter of minutes. Social media marketing is the quickest way to communicate with your audience or clients and interact one-on-one. You can share a picture with a caption or post a video to market your business, and it will reach millions of people within some time.

Helps in brand awareness

Social Media Marketing (SMM) - branding

Branding is very important. It makes your business stand out from others. Social media is a platform used by millions of people. If they often see your business representation there, they will start to develop a sense of familiarity, leading to brand awareness.

Your business can share different organic posts and boost them using SMM tools. This helps in increasing the engagement of the content. In addition, the unique content aligning with your business theme can get organic shares and likes. This spreads the message to many more people, and this is how brand awareness increases.

Read also: Why You Should Include Webinars as a Content Marketing Tool in 2022.

Cons of social media marketing

Delay in ROI

Every business has some specific interest or goal that they want to reach. They either want to enhance the experience with customers or want to drive more traffic to their sites and hence have an increase in sales.

ROI means2 the return on the money invested in social media marketing tricks. Of course, every business wants to gain the invested money back as soon as possible. But that is different here. Social media marketing takes time to show results and increase customer engagement on your business site. It is a long-term marketing plan, and to expect instant results is very unfair.

Time-consuming

Though we admit that the best thing about social media is that it is free, marketing your business here is very time-consuming. You don’t have to share content and advertise it; you also need to put a lot of energy, time, and money into making that content.

This is not to be done once and forgotten, but the content must be thought, created, and shared regularly and consistently. You can use the scheduling apps to get assistance with sharing your content.

In short, social media marketing takes a lot of effort and time before you make a name on the platform.

Risk of negative publicity

Social media is a powerful tool that can be used negatively by its audience. For example, when you market your business on social media, you can face negative comments and criticism in the comment section, personal messages, or shares.

Sometimes even famous brands get under a lot of fire on social media. This can create a negative perception of your brand overall and can affect the number of expected clients, and damage the trust your brand built over time.

Suppose you are thinking of investing in social media marketing. In that case, it’s best to mentally prepare yourself to deal with criticism and trolls because sometimes they can be very harsh and inhumane, which can badly affect your business.

Don’t forget to check our article: The Role of Social Media in the Educational System

Security breaches

Social media marketing needs a lot of effort, as making content is not an easy task. Your followers are your assets, as a huge number of them help your business account become more visible and trustworthy. But just imagine that you lose all that effort and hard work you put in one go. That’s terrible, right…!

Social media accounts can get hacked very easily by hackers. This is very risky as you can get locked out of your account, losing access to important client data or even monetary value. If that happens, your business will need to start building social media accounts from scratch, which is not easy.

To summarize

After knowing the pros and cons of social media marketing, you can decide whether you want it for your business. It has a variety of features that are great for your business growth, but if you wish to quick feedback and results, then you must think of another way of marketing, as this one takes a fair share of time before it shows you any results. However, you will achieve quick results in organizing your webinars with MyOwnConference.

Simplified online meeting and webinar software platform MyOwnConference
Aabhas Vijay

Aabhas is the founder of Avija Digital, a complete digital PR agency for online Strategy and Marketing, Expert in providing consultation as a content strategist for SaaS and tech brands. He began his career in digital marketing in 2016, which continues to this day. He spends his free time in the gym, playing board games, and learning new technologies in the IT sector.

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