by John Addessi, Kansas SBDC Advisor
It is pretty apparent that social media is hot when it comes to marketing! The numbers are staggering: advertisers are already budgeting 700% more on TikTok in 2023 over 2022. TikTok already has over 1 billion monthly active users; it took Facebook years to reach that figure! Facebook itself has nearly three times that number of users each month (see the numbers here). Facebook (and Instagram, which it owns) reportedly also have 60,000 data points on those members, which helps advertisers target their marketing with pinpoint accuracy to consumers who might need or desire their products or services. They know what we like, how we vote, what we buy and what we do.
How should your small business make use of all of this? Social media likely should be a component of your overall marketing strategy, but very rarely should it be the entire strategy. It works best when it is complementary or parallel to other channels. Here’s how that works:
Let’s look at the example of an entrepreneur with a specialty food product. This business owner came up with something new and novel, so no one knows to look for it – or even what it does!
It is a maxim of marketing that a consumer has to see you, hear from you or hear about you 6 to 9 times before they begin to draw the dots between what you offer and what they need or want. Obviously, nobody wants to receive over a dozen phone calls from you, so we begin to look at other methods of getting in front of potential customers. You have a wealth of choices here: e-mails, SMS texts, social media posts and ads, even old-school print options.
With most of the choices other than social media, we need our customers’ contact info. The beauty of social media is that we can target foodies, for example, in the KC metro who also like the flavor or type of cooking that our entrepreneur’s new product enhances. These are people with whom we have never before been in contact. We can put useful content (recipes or food pairings, in this case) in our potential customers’ news feeds. Then, when they see the product in the aisles of the local supermarket, they think, “I’ve heard of that…” and they give it a try. Without the pre-sale marketing efforts, the product would never get noticed or recognized. There are, after all, 15,000 to 60,000 SKUs or items in a typical supermarket! So we need to build that recognition.
You’ve seen this process in action if you’ve watched any TV at all. A pharmaceutical company runs ads telling you to “ask your doctor is blah-blah is right for you.” They’re creating demand and recognition. The pharmaceutical company also markets to the doctors themselves. When a patient asks about the new drug or the doctor prescribes it, there is recognition on both sides. And a sale is made.
The point is that marketing is often two-fold: social media to provide name recognition, which then leads to easier sales when someone shops, clicks or calls.
