Is Social Media Marketing Valuable?

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Is It Worth The Investment?

The hardest thing to give with social media marketing is a solid return on investment. The challenge comes from the ineffectiveness of spending a great deal of time and other resources crafting posts that only attain a couple of clicks and barely any other type of engagement. Even if your content gets a lot of attention, more followers don't always lead to more conversions.

Being successful with your social media campaigns is harder now more than ever with newsfeed algorithms tightening up and favoring organic posts while also only rarely displaying campaigns that aren't paid for. With all of these challenges, the effectiveness of your campaigns is definitely questionable, especially when so much time and effort is put into these campaigns.

Should You Not Use Social Media Marketing Then?

In an article written by Rachel Dankof, she mentions the potential ramifications of pulling social media marketing from your marketing strategy altogether,

"With billions of monthly active users on social media channels, your business can’t afford not to get in the social game."

 So what should you do then? In order to make your investment pay off, set goals for your social media marketing. Create strategies to help you attain those goals. Don't waste time on platforms that won't help you achieve your goals. Study your customer demographic, and make sure your content will be appealing to them.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

According to Jayson DeMers, the top 10 benefits of using effective social media marketing include the following.

1. Increased brand recognition
2. More brand loyalty
3. More opportunities to convert
4. Higher conversion rates
5. Higher brand authority
6. Increased inbound traffic
7. Lower marketing costs
8. Better search engine rankings
9. Richer customer experiences
10. Improved customer insights

As mentioned before, the alternative of not having a social media presence would do your brand more harm than good. As much as social media marketing is important, remember that Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization are better at measuring ROI and thus can provide better, more efficient results. 

Other Useful Links

Is Social Media Marketing Really Worth the Investment?

Is Social Media Marketing Still Worth It?

Gary Vaynerchuk: Why ROI Matters for Social Media