People are becoming social media addicts and major social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube etc have made it possible for businesses to connect with their existing and prospective customers on a one-on-one basis. Before launching your social media marketing campaign, it is prudent to consider the pros and cons of social media for businesses.
Pros:
It is possible to connect with a wide range of customers/prospects through social media – not possible through traditional marketing.
Someone will direct a friend to your blog, Facebook page or social bookmark post and thus your potential for acquiring new leads is quite high. Besides, with little or negligible cost of advertising you can reach potential customers worldwide
You can use social media to build your brand, interact with customers/prospects and demonstrate to them that you care. Social media presence can bring increased traffic to your website.
As there is regular feedback information through public comments, you can better understand your market and what product improvements your consumers expect.
Social media marketing is extremely cost-effective when compared with all other forms of marketing. You may evoke interest of your visitors by sponsoring contests, offering special packages, and in many ways promoting your products and services. This will help boost sales.
Cons
Social media marketing is tedious and time-consuming. You have to create interesting and informative to attract readers. You should promptly respond to comments and sites and update pages. It will certainly be tough to arrest and retain peoples’ attention. Outsourcing these tasks may mean financial outgo.
It may not be feasible to constantly come up with creative, relevant and informative content that can arouse interests in your readers – or else, your being in the social media will be purposeless.
Others can openly criticize your views on whatever you write and you will have no control over their comments. You must monitor and be constantly vigilant as no negative comment should go unanswered.
Social media marketing is a long-drawn process and your return on investment/time spent will be delayed. Social media marketing can help build relationships and achieve brand loyalty but it takes time to see results.
Conclusion
If you intend starting a marketing plan with social media, it is good to be aware of the pros and cons. If you do some advance research and have a robust plan in place, your business can derive significant benefits using the social media tools.