Don’t let social media myths cause you to under estimate the power of social. Invest in it! In the United States alone, people spend an average of 2 hours and 3 minutes scrolling through and checking their social media every day (Digital Marketing Blog 2021). Think about that! The Gen Z and Millennial generations who grew up with social media and pushed the platform to its current state today now make up a large portion of the American workforce. This once “social” platform has crossed into the business arena, quickly changing the landscape of marketing and communications in the process.
When used properly, social media is a powerful tool that can effectively promote your business and allow efficient and direct communication with your consumers. However, there can be a lot of speculation floating around about how to go about marketing on social media and which platforms are best. We’re here to crack those social media myths wide open to give you a better idea of why social media is an important part of any marketing strategy and where you should be spending your time and ad dollars.
Facebook is a Thing of the Past?
As new social platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter have emerged, many social media users have started to believe Facebook’s popularity would soon plummet. Believe it or not, Facebook is the most popular platform with a whopping 2.8 billion daily users. Instagram follows behind with 500 million daily users (HubSpot, 2021).
According to market trends, Facebook has the biggest Return on Investment (ROI) of any platform, and 25% of social media marketing specialists say they are likely to invest more into it than any other platform in 2022 (HubSpot, 2021). Still think Facebook is dead? Try again.
Social Media is For Young People
You’ve heard it said before. “Social Media is just for young people.” We’re sure that this notion comes from the idea that since the youth of today are growing up on these platforms, they have a more natural understanding due to their early exposure. While this may be true, it doesn’t mean that they’re the only ones on it. In fact, far from it.
Taking kids under 13 out of the equation, a hefty 65% of the world’s eligible population can be found on social media. Of those adults between the ages of 30 and 49, 82% have a social media presence. 70% of those between the ages of 50 and 64 are also on social media, and 40% of those above 64 are on social media as well (The Digital Marketing Blog: 2021). Social media is for everyone, and it’s a fantastic way to reach customers of all age demographics!
You Can’t Make Money on Social Media
This one makes us laugh. As of 2021, social media is the #1 channel used by marketers because it is the most effective marketing channel with the highest ROI (HubSpot, 2021). Social media continues to grow by the day, making it a massive digital space to market and promote your business. Heading into 2022, 51% of marketers who leverage social media plan to increase their investment into it, with 26% investing more into it than any other medium (HubSpot, 2021). What do the times of door-to-door selling, cold calls, and social media have in common? At their heart, they’re all effective means of selling advertising. Social media is another means of doing that, all-the-while reaching a larger audience in a digital space with the immediacy of communicating in real-time.
Instagram Is the Best Platform to Be Active On.
Instagram has its perks. It is indeed a very large platform, reaching millions of people around the world. Don’t let this simple fact deter you from staying active on other platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and more. As stated above, Facebook is the platform with the most active daily users, beating out Instagram by nearly double the amount. YouTube also bests Instagram in terms of usage (HubSpot, 2021). Despite this, Instagram is still a great tool with an impressive ROI.
Social Media is Not Measurable
Many businesses are apprehensive about venturing into social media because they are afraid their activity and engagement isn’t measurable. This is simply not true. Social media is a fantastic medium to utilize in business because it is both incredibly effective in passing along a message instantly to a large audience, but also because it is loaded with back-end analytics to dictate and measure the performance of your message.
Monitoring tools crawl the backend of social platforms to find mentions, opinions, and people’s thoughts on particular topics and products. In doing so, it makes it easier to segment and target certain audiences based on their interests, activity, and demographics. In turn, this can push your business to reach even more prospective users that are most likely to be interested in your business.
We get it. Social Media can be daunting depending on how familiar you are with each platform. Don’t be fooled by social media myths. Social media is one of the best ways to expand your businesses’ horizons, reaching a large number of people and building lasting relationships with your customers. Remember, you don’t need to handle it alone! Here at Buzz, we would love to discuss and develop a social media marketing strategy to best drive prospective customers to your website and through the doors of your business.
