How Social Media Marketing has Leveled the Playing Field

Whether you're a small company or a big one, chances are you're still trying to figure out how to market your business. Social media platforms are ever-changing and so are the fads that people are interested in.

During the summer of 2017, I attended a digital marketing conference and listened to many intelligent muckety-mucks talk about the intricacies of successfully marketing their company or others. Statistics were flying around and my head was spinning as I tried to keep up. Scary words like "analytics" and "ROI" were fired at me and I briefly wondered if I was in over my head.

That is until, inevitably, the presenter would then say something to the effect of, "Social media marketing is so new. We're all just trying to figure it out."

Now, THAT I understood.

In this case...size doesn't matter.

You can be one of those people who sits around writing code all day or an analyst who watches the number of "likes" on a page, trying to determine if there's a pattern. But if you don't have someone who understands how important it is to connect with an audience...you might as well not be doing anything at all.

The funny thing about social media marketing is that it's made it easier than ever for companies of any size to participate in successful marketing. You don't have to take out a million-dollar ad during the Super Bowl. Print advertising has just about gone away and pop up advertising just annoys people.

It's all about creating content - blogs, videos, graphics - that make people laugh, cry, and just otherwise engage in your platform. And you can do THAT with any size budget.

We want to see ourselves in our ads.

The other irony is that people don't relate to flashy ads like they used to. We want to see real people living real lives. It seems like these days, the more "normal" the ad, the more we like it and the more likely we are to share it. That means that big budget advertising doesn't always guarantee a return on your investment.

Remember the Chewbacca mom? The one who put on a Chewbacca mask and started laughing so hard she had the rest of the world laughing with her? When the Chewbacca mom went viral, 135 million people watched that clip on YouTube and the mask sold out at Kohl’s. Compare that to the 34 million people who watched the Oscars that year – which Kohl’s actually paid to sponsor. That completely turned sales around for the megachain that month...all because that woman pulled a mask from the clearance bin and filmed herself wearing it.

What's my point?

My point is that if you're a small business, you don't have to have big money to think big. Social media marketing has made it easier than ever AND more cost-effective to reach a wide audience.

All you have to do is turn on your computer....and connect.