Social media is a very effective tool for marketing your business, but comes at a price. In the early days of Facebook business pages, “organic reach”, or how many users you could reach for free, was an efficient option for growing a brand following. However, organic reach didn’t last long.
PAY TO PLAY
Nowadays social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, require business page users “pay-to-play” — or in other words, the only way business pages gain visibility is by paying for advertising. For example, in the past two years, Facebook’s “organic reach” has fallen to less than two percent. On one hand, the volume of content has increased tenfold, therefore creating more competition for users’ attention. On the other hand, Facebook news feeds were designed to show users the most individually relevant content by ranking each story relative to their interests and habits. Unfortunately, paying-to-play presents a roadblock for small business owners without a marketing budget.
IT TAKES TIME
Social media takes time to work. Regular updates are vital to a channel’s success rate, as users’ attention span is scattered across competing posts and the appeal of the newest thing. Consistent posts strengthen brand name recognition and portray a uniform personality across social media platforms, thus increasing your brand’s overall reputation and trustworthiness. Just posting content isn’t enough to grow your audience and it certainly doesn’t translate to immediate sales. The immediate benefit of social media marketing is brand awareness. Why is awareness so important? Awareness leads to engagement, which may become trust over time. But the time it takes to get from Point A, to Point B, to Point C can range anywhere from instantly to 90 days or more.
IT’S NOT THE ANSWER TO EVERYTHING
As you can see, social media is not the answer to all of one’s prayers. Many business owners count on their social media channels to generate consistent leads, but this isn’t necessarily true. Your social media pages are comparable to your business storefront. They should always look great, but they doesn’t guarantee people will always buy your product. This is why diversifying your marketing strategies is very important. What does your website look like? Where else are you advertising? Do you send regular e-mail blasts to your database? Do you need a video explaining what your company does?
SOCIAL MEDIA IS A LOT OF WORK, BUT WE ARE HERE TO HELP
It takes a lot of work to balance multiple channels. It takes time to write posts, edit images, research news articles, and respond to fan comments. There is no magic formula for the perfect amount of time spent managing social media, but it can be time consuming. Consider hiring a team of experts to help you. HeartFire Media is the go-to social media company in San Antonio so you can focus on the nitty gritty of your business 100 percent of the time.
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