Social Media Marketing tips for businesses in 2018

According to The Straits Times, Singaporeans spend almost 12 hours a day on their devices. 70% of that time is spent on social media. That is quite a bit of time and makes the need for companies to use Digital Marketing techniques all the more necessary! However, the issue here is not the extent of its impact, but the way in which companies design their marketing campaigns. These methods are developing and marketers need to adjust to them accordingly.

In a nutshell, Social Media Marketing is a way of sharing content that has been designed to achieve a company’s marketing goals. It makes use of the internet to reach customers, interact with them and increase positive associations with their brand’s image.

Smart Bakers places Facebook in the lead in Singapore, in terms of its influence in Social Media Marketing, with Twitter following in second place. This may be due to the fact that Facebook offers a number of marketing strategies to companies and thus attracts the attention of multiple users. While the extent to which these strategies infringe on customer privacy remains to be seen, there is no doubt that it has a big part to play in Digital Marketing – statistics place Facebook users in Singapore at a whopping 3.16 million.

Moving forward, companies need to realise that Social Media Marketing strategies are changing in order to respond to user preferences. Here are some updates that they should keep in mind this year:

People are becoming immune to ads

The advent of ad blockers has made a big difference to the lives of internet users. They limit the number of ads that come up and, according to Statista, are particularly common amongst the younger generation. The result is that users are either entirely impatient with excessive advertisements or simply dismissive of them.

You need to get serious, fast!

Users are responding to ads with a message. Adidas and Nike are examples of companies who are using social causes and thought-provoking messages to give life to their campaigns, and they are getting a good response!

Choose quality over quantity

Going back to the point about excessive ads, companies need to realise that people are less impressed by quantity. They will scroll down their feed, ignoring anything that fails to capture their attention. The way around this is to make interactive ads that are useful and engaging.

Be more approachable

Remember, customers respond to companies which pay attention. Other than focusing on your ad targeting and creative, you can also try utilising the ‘chat’ option. Make your customers feel wanted and they will respond by giving you their loyalty. This isn’t hard in 2018. With the rise in chatbots, companies will be able to adopt AI-based chatbots that can connect with customers.