Why Your Business Can’t Survive Without a Robust Social Media Presence

It’s hard to imagine how we used to do business before the Internet. Just think back ten years when Facebook was just a fledgling enterprise only being used by college students to chat about the banality of their lives. Fast forward to today and Facebook has become the single largest social media platform in the world with nearly 2 billion active users.

That translates to an audience of nearly 2 billion potential customers – and that’s only ONE of the major platforms! Other major social media players include Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat, and the professional social networking platform, LinkedIn. Each day a new app pops up, and with it, the potential for free or low-cost marketing and advertising.

Social media is no longer the dumping grounds for teen fads and angst, however. It is now considered by many the single largest advertisement placing agency and is projected to become a $74.53 billion-dollar industry in 2018. All those funny memes that were once created by someone with too much time on their hands but were amusing enough for people to share and earn a “viral” status are now being produced by professional social media managers. These social media experts are being hired by leading brands and corporate entities who see the writing on the wall. It is estimated that there are currently 2.46 billion people actively using social media worldwide – are you starting to recognize the importance of capitalizing on those numbers yet?

According to the Pew Research Center, as of January 2017, roughly “seven-in-ten Americans use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves.” It could even be said that social media is what won the American Presidential election in 2016. The Internet has bridged divides that were once thought insurmountable.

Who could have ever imagined in the 1950’s that a person in New Helena, Nebraska would be able to carry on a live video chat with another person in Mumbai to discuss the particulars of a business deal in real time? The power the Internet, and further, social media has in overcoming time and space to unite individuals from around the world for a common cause is unlike anything else in modern history.

And it’s become a literal addiction for some who have become so “connected” they require a digital detox to re-learn how to function normally, without their smartphone constantly in their hands. While that is only in the most extreme of cases, it illustrates the point of social media being a significant facet of modern civilization.

Whether users are logging on to check their messages, scroll the headlines, or check the stock market ticker, they are opening a window of opportunity for you get your brand in front of their eyes. And to do so costs merely a fraction of the cost of more traditional advertising measures such as television commercials.

According to the New York Times, the average cost of a 30-second television ad during the 2017 NFL Super Bowl was $5 million. One could argue it was money well spent when considering that 111 million people around the world watched that game, and presumably all the $5 million commercials.

Comparatively, a company could use Facebook to place an ad and reach a much more targeted audience for a much lower price. In fact, just a $5 Facebook Ads budget can get your brand in the social media feeds of 3,000 pre-filtered people. Using those numbers to hypothetically reach an audience the size of the Super Bowl’s, it would only cost $185,000 rather than $5 million.

So, what have you learned? Let’s review:

• Facebook alone boasts nearly 2 billion active users
• Worldwide, there are 2.46 billion people engaging on social media platforms
• 7 out of every 10 adult Americans utilizes social media
• Using the Facebook social media platform to engage a targeted demographic would cost just over a quarter of what it would cost to cast a wider advertising net to a less select 111 million viewers using traditional television marketing
• Your business can’t survive in contemporary society without a robust social media presence