Over 90% of companies use social media, but is it the right fit for you?
Find out by reading about the pros and cons of social media to see if it’s a worthwhile investment for your company! Keep reading to learn more!
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Pros and cons of social media marketing
If you’re on the fence about doing social media marketing for your business, check out this list of pros and cons of social media marketing to help you decide!
Pros of social media marketing
You can reap numerous social media benefits by investing in this strategy. Some pros we’ll cover include:
- Social media is cost effective
- Social media gives you advanced targeting options
- Social media helps you build relationships
- Social media helps you earn free promotion
- Social media provides insight into performance
Keep reading to learn more about these benefits:
1. Social media is cost-effective
When looking at the pros and cons of social media for business, one of the most significant benefits is that social media is cost-effective.
If you decide to run social media campaigns, setting up a profile doesn’t cost you anything. Platforms for paid social marketing include:
It’s free for you to post on these social media platforms, too.
Where your costs change is if you opt to run social media ads. But you have control over your budget, so you determine how much you’re willing to spend on ads.
You’ll also incur additional costs if you opt to hire a social media marketing company. Those services cost anywhere from $1800 to $2300 per month to have a team of professionals boost your social media’s success and drive more revenue.
Overall, one of the most significant benefits of social media marketing is it’s a cost-effective strategy for promoting your business online.
2. Social media gives you access to advanced targeting
One of the most challenging aspects of traditional marketing is reaching your target audience. When you use traditional marketing methods, you often reach people who don’t want your products or services. It leads to wasted marketing dollars that could be better spent reaching the right people.
One of the biggest pros of social media marketing is that you can reach your target audience. Social media platforms offer advanced targeting features to get granular with your social media marketing.
On social media platforms, you can target people based on their:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Buying habits
- Interests
- Hobbies
- Browsing behaviors
- And more
This advanced targeting enables you to spend your marketing dollars reaching people who want to learn about your products or services.
3. Social media helps you build relationships with prospects
When looking at the pros and cons of social media, one thing to consider as a pro is that it helps you build relationships with prospects. There are dozens of brands vying for your audience’s attention, which means your prospects have complete control over who they interact with online.
People tend to flock to brands they feel connected to and that take time to interact with and listen to their audience. If you offer great products and a great experience, you’re more likely to earn loyal customers for your business.
One of the pros of social media is that you can connect with your audience and deliver that great experience. You can share valuable content with them and interact with prospects in the comments. It’s an excellent medium for helping you boost brand awareness and get people interested in your company.
4. Social media helps you earn free promotions
If you look at the pros and cons of social media marketing, you’ll see that one of the social media benefits is free promotion. Many people use social media to share new products they’ve bought or positive experiences with a company.
These actions offer significant benefits to your business because it serves as free promotion for your company. If people are buzzing about your brand and sharing it online, it creates an excellent opportunity for their friends and family to discover your products or services.
Additionally, social media gives you access to user-generated content. This content is the posts, photos, and videos your audience shares with their followers. It allows you to have authentic content that shows someone’s experience with your brand.
As a result, one of the biggest pros of social media marketing is that you gain access to free promotional content that helps you reach more people and build confidence in your brand.
5. Social media marketing provides insights into performance
If you’re looking at the pros and cons of social media for business, you’ll find that insight into campaign performance is a huge benefit. When you invest the time and effort into running your campaigns, you want to know if they’re helping your business grow.
One of the pros of social media marketing is seeing how your campaigns perform. Each social media platform enables you to track your post performance to see how your posts resonate with your audience.
You can track engagement, shares, and more with your posts. It’s an excellent way for you to see what’s working, so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
Cons of social media marketing
While there are numerous great social media benefits, there are some drawbacks to using this strategy. Some cons we’ll cover include:
- Social media requires time
- Social media requires knowledge
- Social media takes time to show results
- Social media leaves you open to scrutiny
Here’s more on those cons of social media marketing you need to know:
1. Social media requires time
One of the biggest cons of social media marketing is that it requires time. It may seem easy to make a quick post on your social media page and get on with your day, but it takes more than that. You must strategically plan the content you create, monitor its performance, and engage with your audience.
All those tasks take up time. And when your day is jam-packed with other tasks, you may not have the time to dedicate to creating a successful social media strategy.
To solve this problem, many people will outsource their social media to a social media company to free up their time and reap the benefits of social media marketing.
2. Social media requires knowledge
Many business owners and marketers falsely believe that they just must post on social media and that it doesn’t matter what they post, as long as it’s there. What you post has a significant impact on how your audience engages with your business.
That means you need to know what your audience wants, what posts will work, and how to engage your audience. If you don’t have experience with social media marketing, you may find this process frustrating.
Trying to figure out the right content to post can be a significant drawback of social media marketing, especially if you do it yourself.
3. Social media takes time to see results
When looking at the pros and cons of social media marketing, you’ll find that a significant drawback is that it takes time to see results from your marketing. You need to post consistently and often to build engagement with your brand.
Many businesses want quick results, but you won’t get that with social media marketing. It can be a drawback because you must wait and see how your content performs over time to see if it’s effective for your business.
4. Social media leaves you open to scrutiny
To wrap up this list of the pros and cons of social media for businesses, let’s look at online criticism. One of the biggest cons of social media marketing is that you leave your business open to criticism and scrutiny.
If people have a negative experience with your business, they’re likely to share their experiences on social media. They may create a post and tag you in it or comment on one of your posts to share their criticisms.
While criticism is good for helping you make positive changes to your business, managing your brand image online can be overwhelming. You may find that one customer’s bad experience starts to spread to others and that you must do damage control.
If you choose to build a presence on social media platforms, you must consider how you will handle criticisms and scrutiny of your business. Consider using social media management software so you can track comments, stay on top of social listening, and respond to messages.
Is social media marketing worth it?
After looking at the pros and cons of social media marketing, you may wonder if it’s a good fit for your business. Overall, social media marketing is an excellent investment for your business. It’s an impactful way for you to market your business to people interested in what you offer.
With over 5 billion active social media users, you have great potential to reach people interested in your business. You have a great opportunity to reach people looking for your products or services. Many people in your target audience already use social media to connect with others, making it a great medium to reach prospects.
Additionally, social media marketing allows you to target people specifically. You don’t have to waste valuable marketing dollars teaching people who aren’t interested in what you offer. Instead, you put your business in front of people who want your products or services.
Overall, when looking at the pros and cons of social media for businesses, the pros outweigh the cons. Not to mention, many of the cons can be mitigated by partnering with a social media agency.
A social media agency can save you time from posting online and knows what types of posts resonate with your audience. Additionally, they can help you manage any negative feedback you get, so you’re consistently delivering a top-notch customer experience.
Overall, the pros of social media marketing outweigh any cons of social media marketing. You reap more benefits by utilizing these social platforms to grow your business.
Need help taking advantage of social media benefits?
Though there are pros and cons of social media marketing, it’s a very valuable tool for helping you reach your target audience, build relationships, and ultimately earn sales for your business. If you need a team of professionals to help you handle your social media marketing, look no further than WebFX.
We have a team of over 500 social media experts ready to help you build your social media presence. Our team knows how to drive results, too –– We’ve driven over $3 billion in revenue for our clients in the past five years alone.
Ready to launch your revenue-driving social media strategy? Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our social media services!
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