Social media may be aging, but it knows how to stay hip. That’s because new and innovative social media channels consistently pop up to fill needs we didn’t even know we had. And more than that, the capabilities and uses of these social media channels are constantly evolving.

Commercially speaking, that last sentence is a big point. Social media in general is becoming more and more important for businesses, both big and small. While many business leaders are taking advantage of the power social media can offer to their bottom line, many ignore it.

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Business leaders typically approach social media in 3 distinct ways.

1. 100% embrace it
2. Acknowledge its importance, while also acknowledging they don’t understand it
3. Remain completely blind to its benefits

If you already embrace social media to meet your business objectives, then congrats, you win. You can stop reading this article and jump over here to learn more about Facebook advertising. (hyperlink to our blog post about Facebook advertising).

If you fall into one of the other two categories, then we’re here to help. We’ve heard all of the reasons why you won’t invest the time and effort into social media, but we aren’t giving up on you yet.

Reason #1: “I don’t understand it.”

That’s fine. Again, social media is new. Maybe you didn’t grow up with it or you just haven’t spent the time and energy to understand it (probably because you don’t want to). But that doesn’t mean you don’t need it.

The thing is, you don’t have to spend time and energy to master social media if it’s not something you want to do. There are plenty of people out there who eat and breathe social media and are ready to help. You just need to be willing to invest the resources. Hire a coordinator. Hire an agency. Do something.

Why? We’ll tell you!

Reason #2: “I don’t see how it benefits my business.”

In 2015, brands spent $187 billion on advertising. TV made up the biggest share of this ad spend, at 42%, or $79 billion.

If companies are willing to spend that much money on TV, why not invest in social media? An effective investment is pennies compared to TV.

That’s not to say social media rules all. It shouldn’t replace all other advertising channels. But it does a great job of complementing them.

Integrating your campaigns with social media is a great way to ensure you’re effectively reaching your audience by creating frequency and more impressions. But most importantly, you’re creating engagement and conversations around your brand.

64% of Twitter users and 51% of Facebook users say they’re more likely to buy products of brands they follow online. That means if you’re not on these channels, these customers are going to your competitors who ARE.

There’s more…

84% of CEOs and VPs confess to using social media to help make their own purchasing decisions. If that’s true, then why do you think social media isn’t right for YOUR brand?

Not only can advertising effectively on social media impact your bottom line, it can also digitally impact other marketing areas that you use to impact your bottom line.

Is it important for your website to rank well on Google search engines? For most companies, yes it is. And if so, then you need to really think about your Facebook strategy and creating compelling and engaging content. That’s because shares on Facebook have a large influence on Google search rankings due to Google’s preference for backlinks.

Reason #3: “My target audience isn’t on social media.”

WRONG!

Every audience is on social media. It’s just a matter of which social media channel is most effective at reaching your target audience.

72% of all adult Internet users are on Facebook. And over 84% of the US population are Internet users. So chances are, your target audience is at the very least active on Facebook. This makes Facebook a smart channel to start your campaign, especially since 56% of users check Facebook DAILY.

But there are other social media platforms you may want to use depending on your audience.

Are you trying to reach the coveted millennial generation? Well, 55% of adult Internet users ages 18-29 are on Instagram. There are 5 million images uploaded every day here. Shouldn’t yours be one of them?

Are you targeting women in your campaign? Well, 44% of women Internet users are on Pinterest, so get to pinning because the average user spends 89 minutes a month here.

What about college-educated professionals? 46% of adult Internet users with a college education are on LinkedIn. It’s time to up your game here because it’s where the average user spends 21 minutes a week.

53% of consumers recommend companies and products on Twitter. Don’t you want to be in a position to engage in these conversations about your brand?

Reason #4: “You can’t measure success.”

You can measure success, it just depends on your objectives.

Perhaps you want to measure success by the amount of conversions your campaign produces.

Easy. Just place a tracking code from your ad campaign onto the confirmation page of your website, whether it be a confirmation page after a transaction or a new lead through a contact form (depending on your business objective). Then your data will show you that Campaign A resulted in (x) impressions and (x) conversions, giving you an (x) conversion rate. There’s your measurement for success!

For reference, advertising on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn come with easy-to-use conversion tracking capability. Surely, other platforms will follow.

Or maybe you want just wanted to raise awareness about your company or product. Then you’d use key performance indicators, like retweets, likes, comments, followers, page likes, link clicks, etc. (jargon depending on which social network the campaign is on, obviously).

Though measuring social media campaign ROI may be muddy depending on your goals, it can be much more crystal clear than measuring your TV advertising ROI. And the investment needed for an effective social media campaign is a fraction compared to TV.

Do You Love Social Media Yet?

Social media is here and it’s not going anywhere. It’s becoming more and more a part of our everyday lifestyle, and brands are buying in. As a business leader, you know how important it is to track not only the consumer, but also the competition. And they’re both on social media. So the question isn’t whether or not you should be on social media. The question is what’s your strategy going to be to beat the competition and win those consumers?