What Are The Pros And Cons Of Social Media Marketing For Business?

When social media first came into being, no one knew the impact it would have on society. Its origins date back over 20 years to a site called Six Degrees and, in much the same way as social media sites today, it was a site for users to create a profile and share information.

Fast forward to the early 2000s and Flickr, MySpace and YouTube, among many other similar sites, emerged in 2005, followed by Facebook and Twitter in the following year. Suddenly, millions of users have been on social media sites, and businesses are sure to follow where the people are. Using the platforms in much the same way as ordinary users, businesses have found a way to advertise their goods and services.

There are many more platforms to interact, share content and market your business today. Many sites are owned by the same company, for example. Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Microsoft and LinkedIn. These sites benefit from content sharing and make it easy for users to switch between platforms using the same login credentials. It is therefore no surprise that businesses want to market brands through the services offered by networking sites, including Facebook , Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, some experts say that SMM (social media marketing) is expensive.

Below are some Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing:

Pros:

• Low Cost.

This is one of the key advantages of social media marketing over traditional marketing and other forms of digital marketing. It is free to join all major social media platforms and it is equally free to start interacting with potential customers at a basic level. However, if you want a higher return for your mobile app development company, you can decide to go professional and invest some money in your marketing effort. This will generate higher returns for your business at a fraction of the cost of getting the same return while doing traditional marketing.

• Big Audience.

This is another major advantage of the marketing of social media. Promoting your mobile app development company or business or products on social media platforms gives you the chance to reach millions of people. While the traditional form of marketing caters to a fixed predetermined audience, there is no limitation on social media marketing. It breaks down any demographic barriers, whether age, sex, or social.

• Fast.

If you’re looking for one of the quickest ways to reach a news audience or another form of information, then social media marketing is your best choice. Social media marketing can be relied on for quick action and results. Immediately you publish it to your audience all over the world on the social media platform. People are currently linking their social media platforms to their website, so that new information published on their website is simultaneously published on their social media platforms.

• Interaction.

Trust is important in every business, the more customers trust your mobile app development company, the more confident they will be in buying your products and sponsoring your service. Social media marketing has been built on interaction, which is a hallmark of social media. Social media marketing allows for greater interaction between businesses and customers, which is painfully lacking in the traditional form of marketing. Existing and potential clients can use these media to communicate their fears, ask questions and make relevant suggestions. This regular interaction builds a long-term relationship that would generate a profitable outcome for any business.

Cons:

• Time – Consuming.

This is one of the biggest setbacks of social media marketing. For an effective marketing effort, you need to spend as much time online as possible refreshing your pages with content that is appropriate to keep your audience interested and engaged. This usually requires a lot of research, which would take a lot of time. Social media marketing also requires you to provide timely responses to audiences who may comment or ask questions on your platform. All of this makes social media marketing time-consuming.

• Long Time on Return on Investment.

Every marketing effort has a goal, for some, it is about improving their customer base, and for some, it is about increasing traffic to make them more relevant, and yet for others, it is about increasing sales. Depending on what your marketing objectives are for your mobile app development company, social media marketing can take a long time to show a return on investment. If you’re going to social media marketing for the first time, it’s important to know that it’s not a genius who’s going to start giving your wishes instantly, sometimes it takes time.

• Risk of negative publicity.

Social media marketing is a very powerful tool, but it can also use the same force to reduce or negatively impact a business. When you decide to adopt social media marketing, one of the things you need to know is that you are entering a new world and exposing your business or brand to new threats. The internet is filled with miscreant and unscrupulous elements that want to see your business fail. They ‘re going to slander your business and post negative comments even when they don’t know what your company is doing.

• Loss of Control.

This is in tandem with the previous one. If a dissatisfied former employee or customer has a negative effect on your brand, this can be viral and it is usually difficult to control. Social media marketing takes control of business owners and marketers.