Many businesses are increasingly using social media for marketing themselves and reaching out to clients. Social media sites such as Twitter, You Tube LinkedIn and Face book have numerous benefits for businesses and they are quickly overtaking traditional media such as Television and print advertisements, flyers, posters and brochures. In addition to all this, social media has nowadays become an integral part of many businesses’ organic SEO efforts since it has helped businesses in generating links to their websites. Here are some of the advantages of social media sites over traditional media.
Low cost
Marketing goods and services using traditional media is extremely expensive, particularly for small businesses. On the contrary, marketing on social media sites is absolutely free of charge. The only cost that a business can incur when using these sites is the time they spend on interacting with contacts and updating profiles. The low cost of using social media for purposes of marketing is quiet useful to small businesses since they find the cost of marketing themselves on traditional media quiet prohibitive. It is also easier for businesses to use social media networks for purposes of distributing promotional materials like videos and articles. It would cost business vast amount of money to distribute such material by publishing it in newspapers or have it advertised on TV or radio.
Unlimited access
One of the major advantage of social media over traditional media is that it is accessible all the times and from virtually any geographical location. Social media platforms are open to all businesses regardless of their size. On the contrary, accessing the traditional media is quiet expensive since a business must invest a lot of resources. Accessing traditional media will also require businesses to have a good knowledge of the media industry.
Simplicity
A very high level of training, specialist equipment and skill is need in order for businesses to use social media to market their goods and services effectively. In contrast, social media networks are quite simple to use. They can be used by people who only have basic IT skills.
Global reach
Though traditional media can equally reach a global audience, it is however both time-consuming and costly. But with social media platforms, businesses can convey vast information within a fraction of a second, irrespective of geographical location. Social media networks also allow businesses to tailor their content for every market segment. Therefore, social media networks have given small and big businesses alike the opportunity to deliver their messages to a global audience. Web 2.0 technology has made it practical to instantly exchance volumes of information virtually, even at a global scale.
Flexibility
Due to their adaptability, social media sites make content management more flexible. Unlike in traditional media, information posted on social media networks can easily be altered, updated and supplemented. Most importantly, businesses can publish their information in a matter of seconds.
Contact building
Social media networks enables businesses to interact with their customers and also build a long term relationship with them. This is largely due to the interactive and real-time nature of social media networks . Businesses can also use social media networks for purposes of managing their customer services.
Robert Zhan 