Fun fact about the state of social media in 2023: Facebook is about to be old enough to vote! It’s no longer a question of should your business be on social media but a question of how effectively you are using this powerful tool for marketing your business. If you don’t have an answer to this question, you’ll likely struggle to maintain relevancy in today’s fast-moving digital marketplace.
Don’t just take our word for it; look at this latest Google Trend graph showing the rise of social media and the decline of the ever-popular excuse for the lack of marketing: “Word of Mouth.”
Social Media Marketing vs. Word Of Mouth
So, what do you do with this information?
As a business owner, it’s time to come to the incredibly important realization that social media is not only a viable part of marketing your business, it’s actually one of the most effective ways for many business models in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape.
It’s not enough to casually post pictures on your social media channels once in a while, either. Not only do platforms like Facebook and Instagram understand that your page is a business, but they expect you to pay them in order for our content to be shown to your intended audiences.
Did you know that less than 5% of the content you post is shown to your audience organically (without paying to promote it)? This is known as Pay-to-Play, and it is becoming more common with services like Twitter’s new Gold Verification for businesses. This is a big change from just a few short years ago; each time you posted an update, it was shown to all of your page audience (those users who like and follow your page). Now, not only do you have to pay the platforms to grow your page audience, you have to pay the platforms to show those people who have already chosen to be a part of your audience your content. This makes the market fiercely competitive and requires your business to take a serious look into advertising budgets if you want to be heard above the noise.
So, what’s new then?
If you’re savvy with social media marketing, you’re probably thinking to yourself that this is nothing new for 2023. These changes were rolled out in phases in 2017 and 2018. That’s true! However, the Meta Business Manager interface, the Ads Manager interface, and Meta’s Advertising Policies (in the wake of failures like Cambridge Analytica) are changing regularly; Meta has become increasingly strict with advertising policies, more advanced with ad targeting options and introducing more highly developed interfaces to improve your performance.
Social Media Marketing has a lot of weight to carry as a small business’s only marketing program. For most small businesses, running things yourself is not the best answer. A mix of services, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), Email Marketing, Web Services, and Social Media, are needed to help boost your business above the competition. Unless you’re able to keep up with weekly advances and policy changes, manually invest money in paid posts to grow your audience quickly, and develop strategies to reach and retarget your audience, social media marketing will prove to be a very slow-growth marketing service line and will not yield lead procurement results with the speed you would expect.
Your social media pages start off as a branding tool.
Understanding the best and latest strategies for using that tool is why you should be working with a trusted advisor. As your platforms begin to grow and develop, you’re raising your hand to let your audience know you’re here, and you are sharing content that helps them get to know your brand and your products or services.
When you have 50 followers on Instagram, don’t expect the public to jump for joy and immediately start buying into your brand and what you’re selling. 21st-century consumers are educated, and they will vet you. One of the first places modern-day consumers look for you is on social media, so having a professional presence is critical for landing those first impressions.
Once your platforms start to grow legs and build an audience, they will move from only serving as a branding tool into a customer service vessel for your company. You will notice customers asking about products or services they are interested in or have paid for.
Finally, when you have reached an acceptable audience size (whatever size your audience find acceptable), once they see a regular stream of content sharing (so they realize you’re not a bot/spam account) and you have positively interacted with your customers on your pages as proof of your customer service, your platforms will begin to procure leads or sales more organically.
This trajectory is slow growth, and you must be committed to its success for the long haul. Commitment in this context means you must work to regularly cultivate impressive and relevant content, you must not try to oversell to people, and you should offer content that users actually care about, not what you want them to see.
How does your product or service solve the problem for the consumer?
How can The AD Leaf help you?
You are busy running your business as it is, so this information about the state of social media in 2023 might be too time-consuming -and sometimes overwhelming- especially if you don’t have much experience! That’s why it’s important to have on your side a marketing firm that develops content targeted to your goals, audience, and industry! Our social media team works together seamlessly to achieve your business goals, so give us a call today at 321-255-0900 or fill out our contact form! We are just a click or call away.
