by Brittany Mitchell
The title probably stunned you, right? A Marketing Director making such a bold statement and asking the question every business owner will ask themselves at some point. Well, let me explain – because I am about to share the truth with you all.
I recently gave a presentation about social media and one of the attendees commented, “Social Media can be useful for some businesses, but it doesn’t work for every business.” In the moment, the statement kind of caught me off guard because I wasn’t expecting it – which I totally should have expected. It’s an understandable statement. As I left, my brain started overflowing with information and reasoning why it IS, in fact, important for every business.
Let me share some statistics.
1. Facebook - 2.2 billion monthly active users
2. Instagram - 1 billion monthly active users (400 million daily active Stories users)
3. Twitter - 336 million monthly active users
4. 60 million businesses have a FB page
5. Every 60 seconds on Facebook: 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded.
Those are some BIG numbers, folks. BILLIONS upon BILLIONS of individuals utilize social media. There are several different types of businesses out there and I’ll admit, some social media pages perform better than others. For example, you may be a lawyer - let’s just pretend this lawyer’s name is Sheila.
Sheila has a business page for her law office that gets very little likes, growth and engagement. She is scrolling through her personal social media newsfeed and comes across a retail page generating hundreds of likes, shares and has great engagement – she immediately gets down on herself wondering why on earth her business page isn’t getting that kind of response?!
Well, stop and think about it - those two businesses are completely different from one another. Most of the time, when an individual is seeking legal services, it’s for something extremely personal – something most people don’t want to make public on social media – hence why a law office page isn’t getting as many likes and engagement. Whereas, people love to share what trendy top they just purchased. Don’t compare; comparison is the thief of joy – especially when you’re comparing oranges to apples. Know your audience, how to reach and relate to them – that’s a crucial step in social media marketing. Experiment; find what works and toss what doesn’t.
Social Media isn’t always about the likes - social media is about making impressions. Social media allows you to put your name in front of people that might have never had the opportunity to know about our business. People need to see your name consistently. The more times they see your name, the more likely they will use your business when they need your services. Just because you aren’t receiving the desired number of “likes” on your posts doesn’t mean the content isn’t being seen. Trust me, if you’re taking the time to target correctly, your audience is seeing it. Don’t give up on social media, but don’t rely on social media solely – you still have exercise traditional methods such as referrals, word-of-mouth and building relationships. All in all, why not allow yourself the opportunity to expand your business growth when you have all this amazing technology at your fingertips?