• B2B and B2C businesses approach social media marketing quite differently.
• Businesses aren’t certain that their Facebook marketing campaigns work.
• Though used for free, social media marketing should work towards quantifiable goals.
• Facebook demands payment for marketing tools.

The hard truth for small businesses is their dependency on Social Media to bridge their products and services to the endless pockets of the Internet. While this assertion is met by raised eyebrows, it’s true. A solid and well strategized social media marketing plan is critical to the growth of starting and small businesses.

In a study conducted by the Social Media Examiner, almost 4,000 small businesses from around the world were assessed on their social media habits and how effective they were in achieving their businesses’ targets. According to the information gathered, 93% depend on Facebook and 79% on Twitter to get their brands across to the online market. It was also determined that 62% plan to increase their Facebook campaigns and achieve greater marketing milestones. On the other hand, 66% are planning to broaden and widen their Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube efforts.

While a lot of people and businesses are eyeing greater Twitter penetration, the social media platform itself isn’t strategically designed to offer systematic marketing tools and options unlike that of Facebook’s. While it is tweaking up its gears to provide greater advertising opportunities, similar to what Instagram and Pinterest are projecting and working towards, it’s going to be interesting to watch what these key players can come up with in offering unique and competitive techniques that will try to outperform the other.

B2B and B2C businesses approach social media marketing quite differently.

It was found out that B2B businesses prefer LinkedIn over other platforms but still maintain thriving marketing campaigns in other popular channels. B2Bs are more concerned about looking for resources, facilities, partners, specifically skilled professionals and other industry leaders to establish working relationships with. Using LinkedIn eliminates the need to comb through the rather wide selection of users and directly target those that meet the criteria.

Of the total respondents, 71% want to have a major shift in their marketing campaigns. Those who belong to the 75% who invest in Facebook ads want to increase their LinkedIn advertising to the same intensity from the previous 18%.

On the other hand, B2C companies are more engaged in Facebook and Twitter, finding the maximum exposure to the greatly dense consumer base highly attractive. For those who are targeting the entire global spectrum as a potential market, it makes sense to go where the crowds are. While having too many people in one platform could mean that your efforts could get stuck in human traffic somewhere, Facebook is constantly updating its services in order to ensure that the ideal customer profiles are reached by marketing efforts.

Businesses aren’t certain that their Facebook marketing campaigns work.

Let’s refocus the spotlight on Facebook and the many businesses that are unloading all their efforts and resources into this platform in order to maximize its many opportunities. The truth of the matter is marketers aren’t quite able to quantify whether or not their campaigns in the largest social network are effective or are enough.

Many are uncertain if there is really a way to quantify the extent of brand awareness or customer satisfaction. A lot are still operating on the premise that a like turned into a lead that eventually became a sale is the best demarcation to indicate that the current marketing strategies actually work.

Though used for free, social media marketing should work towards quantifiable goals.

Not unlike the usual way of doing business the way everyone is used to—face to face—all our advertising efforts need to be set with clear-cut goals. Just because Facebook is relatively free—unless a marketer subscribes to its paid business tools and facilities—doesn’t mean that all the hours and talent spent on getting your message across to the masses shouldn’t be compensated monetarily.

But it’s not that businesses don’t have set goals. In fact, many actually do have hopes that all those trend-riding attempts at drawing customers can suddenly turn their business into a million-dollar success overnight, like what we are currently hearing and reading about in the news. The difference between two enterprises where one is achieving its goals while the other one isn’t is the method by which they measure and appropriate a certain degree of effort to an expected and projected return.

Facebook demands payment for marketing tools.

While Facebook started off giving free exposure to all its users, it is now capitalizing on paid advertising. To a certain extent, people can still market their products without having to pay in order to “boost” a post, but that would equate to spending more time digging through every organized group and tribe on social media. Whereas you can pay for the system to apply the same or greater effectivity in giving you the results you’re aiming for.

On average, marketers spend around 6 hours promoting their Facebook pages. And that’s just Facebook alone. The amount of time spent updating every social media account for business purposes is a different discussion entirely. While time equates to money, marketers still strongly agree that advertising and promotion costs and efforts have drastically lowered since the rise of social media. The markets have become more competitive, trying to show up the other by using more innovative and attractive techniques.

Running a business and attempting to catch up with the many innovations that are happening in the world of social media could be quite overwhelming, especially for those who aren’t well-versed with how the Internet works. In today’s digital age, it wouldn’t do your business good to ignore all these information about creating a competitive marketing presence. In fact, it’s a must and requires just as much attention and effort. In reality, some businesses have marketing efforts that are too amplified for such a simple product portfolio—and that has made all the difference in their online marketing success.

Do you want your business to reap the benefits of a great brand and an equally remarkable social media campaign? Talk to us. We can offer you everything you need to establish a notable and competitive online presence.

Call Neoranking at 3159 0637 and add +65 at the beginning if you’re calling from outside Singapore.

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