Before we start talking about digital marketing, here is one question for you: Has marketing strategies changed over the years? Is marketing from 10 years ago still the same as today?
Obviously not.
Before digitalization has taken over the world, marketing was done via direct mail, phone calls, flyers and signages. Companies hire telemarketers to pursue cold leads via phone calls, which may sometimes end up being inefficient as KPIs are not met. In fact, many of these “old school” (traditional) forms of marketing are deemed as unproductive today. In addition, the increasing social stigma towards telemarketers who hard sell their products and services to people who do not have interest in their company is slowly causing traditional marketing technics to be not well received.
As time passes, the world became interconnected through digitalization. Marketing strategies have changed along with digitalization to increase outreach to target audience and drive sales. In fact, marketing is especially important for start-up companies to bring the company’s name and products/services to potential consumers or users. In this article, we will focus on a specific type of digital marketing: Using social media as a digital marketing strategy.
Using social media for Company Branding
Approximately 4.62 billion people around the world now uses social media, and 424 million new users have come online within the last 12 months. This shows that social media platforms are the most efficient place to promote your product and services to reach out to a larger pool of people. Here are some recommended social media platforms that companies can use to reach out to their target audience:
Instagram – Instagram is a suitable social media platform for B2C (business-to-consumers) marketing. This is because most Instagram users are not business owners but instead individuals who use the platform for entertainment purposes, such as connecting with friends, family and following up with the latest news. Hence, start-up companies with consumers as their target audience can consider using Instagram to reach out to their consumers.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a business platform where businesses can connect with each other. Individual users mainly use LinkedIn as a job seeking platform or to explore their opportunities with companies that are on LinkedIn. As a start-up company founder, you may consider using LinkedIn to list your job openings to increase applicants for various job positions in your company. You can also connect with other businesses to form collaborations for events, networking sessions etc. Using LinkedIn helps to bring the name and brand of your company to potential job seekers who are looking for jobs and other start-ups that are looking for collaborations to boost their outreach.
Facebook – Compared to the other platforms, Facebook has been around for a longer period. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook is considered the pioneer platform that led on to the world of digitalization. Recent demographics show that the average Facebook user in the U.S was 40.5 years old. This indicates that Facebook users are usually older than Instagram users, and hence the content that they are interested in may also be different. It depends on your company’s target audience’s age group to determine whether Instagram or Facebook is a more suitable platform for B2C marketing.
Tiktok / Youtube – Tiktok and Youtube are both platforms which users can upload videos on. The only difference is the Tiktok is less formal than Youtube and more for short clips than long clips. Tiktok is more targeted at the newer generation, mainly generation Z. Hence, if your start-up aims to target the younger group of people (for example educational services), you can consider using Tiktok to reach out to your target audience and at the same time market your service or product in a light-hearted manner.
In conclusion, social media marketing is one of the easiest digital marketing strategies that can be used to reach out to your company’s target audience. Next week, we will be sharing with you another digital marketing strategy, which is email marketing. Stay tuned for next week’s article!
