The Effect of Social Media on Communication and Marketing

Social media has changed the way we communicate with each other. Consider the bus on your way to work, most of the people on it spend the trip checking their phones and communicating with their friends via different social media platforms.

Now look back 5 years ago and think of the tools you normally used for keeping in touch with the people you know, they’re probably not the same as the ones you’re using right now. The arrival and acceptance of social media has altered the basic rules of communication, and especially those between businesses and their customers.

There is no longer a one way communication channel, the business-to-customer and business-to-business models have been replaced by a stronger multidimensional model represented by social media.

Considering the evolution of social media, we’re currently at a point where engagement with the customer is vital. Content curation platforms have become popular in the past few years, and now users decide what they want even before it is offered to them.

If we consider the case of Pinterest and its rapid growth in the last months, users of this site collect images to add them to inspiration or wishlist boards. Some brands have seen a great opportunity on it, creating branded profiles and using the site as a social media marketing tool to reach potential customers.

The customer needs to feel engaged to the content businesses create, it is no longer a matter of making an ad for the product and spending lots of money on distribution. The whole point of marketing in social media is trying to do something that doesn’t cost much money but that can reach many people at the same time.

It is about quality and not quantity, a meaningful and interesting dialogue needs to be created between the business and the customer. Marketing via social media can be a slower process if compared with the traditional marketing tools, but final results show that companies should be consider this kind of activities nowadays.

It is important to be fully engaged and involved in the process, if you are a small business you probably won’t get many ‘likes’ on Facebook or followers in any other social media platforms during the first weeks after setting up your account. You need to listen to your customers and understand what they want; some brands have started to use, for example, Twitter as a communication channel for customer service and feedback.

Know your customers and find out what they consider interesting and what they like about your business. Create engaging content that is likely to be shared by your followers to their friends, increasing the chances of getting more customers and people visiting your site.

Be patient and remember that the results from social media marketing can take some time to show up, keep a regular interaction with your customers and they will start to show interest in your social media activities.