Using Social Media to the Fullest Potential

It is estimated that as of January 2018, there are around 4.021 billion Internet users around the globe (nearly half of the world’s population), and among those numbers of Internet users are 3.196 billion social media users active on dozens of different platforms. What does this mean for business owners, event planners, and freelancers? For many, it means that they are missing out on a vital new marketplace where they advertise to a broader audience in a fresh, interactive way; by utilizing social media to advertise your business, event, or services, you can reach an audience of thousands. Social media marketing has proven to be a quick, cost-effective, and most importantly effective method of advertising businesses, services, and products for the past decade, with companies across the world finding new, interactive ways to interact with their customers through social media.

A prime example of the power of well-planned and well-executed social media marketing campaign is Dollar Shave Club, an online company that sells razors and shaving products to customers by mail. In 2016, they launched their humorous #RazorBurn Twitter campaign, which poked fun at competitor’s razor’s by saying that their blades got so worn-out and old that they, for example, “eat dinner at 4:30”, accompanied by fun meme images and a link to learn more about Dollar Shave Club’s packages and prices. This simple campaign resulted in a 24% lift in overall social media mentions for the company and a 6% increase in Twitter followers.

Social media has become a booming market for reaching new customers, but is, unfortunately, one that is sorely under-utilized by many businesses and companies simply because many people are intimidated by the concept; many may feel that it is too complicated to use, that their customers are not on social media, or just believe that it does not provide meaningful results. These misconceptions can prove to be detrimental to a business with the rapid advancement of technology and social media in the 2010s going into the 2020s, but these skeptical businesses can be swayed to implement social media marketing simply by seeing the amount of success that other businesses and companies of all sizes and services have had through the clever use of social media marketing.