Social Media Can Help Market Your Business and Work

There is no doubt social media can help advertise or market your business and work. That is why established businesses like Coca Cola have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, etc. Social media can even help you run for President! 😊

Social Media Marketing and the AD-pocalypse
Of course, SMM or social media marketing is also a double-edged sword. Recently (as of June 2020), major corporations like Coca Cola, Unilever and others began boycotting Facebook, by stopping their paid advertising/marketing campaigns. They consider themselves socialpreneurs, as well as entrepreneurs, who have a duty, obligation and responsibility to the general public, especially to the consumers they market to and … dare I say it? … to contributing to world peace.

The major brands want Facebook and other popular social media platforms to take definitive action to curb and even prevent the use of their social networks for promulgating and spewing out hate speech and similar rhetoric. They have taken the position that something must be done to stop others from using social media to provoke civil unrest, divide the people of the United States, and ultimately erode the American ideals of freedom, equality and justice for all. If Mr. Zuckerberg (Facebook owner; now known as Meta) and other corporate executives of social media companies don't do something to curtail this type of activity, then the businesses simply won't advertise, which, in turn, will result in significantly decreased revenues. How can these digital platforms survive with no profits?

To quote Nancy Smith, president and CEO of Analytic Partners, "[Advertisers] don't want their brands next to hate language, but this takes it a level further because of the social activism component". This move has been referred to as an "Adpocalypse" and actually started in 2017 when major advertisers pulled their ads from YouTube.

The Advantages of Social Media Marketing
Do you agree with this Adpocalypse movement? I do.

But let's assume this real social issue is not a matter to be concerned with and the question simply put is: Can social media help market your business?

The obvious answer is yes. However, in my opinion the question is not can social media help you market, but rather: How do you harness the power of social media?

For me, a small home business professional with limited funds and resources, since social media accounts are provided as a free service, the most practical thing to do was to create an account. Once my profile was created I learned that you could create Facebook business pages for your blogs and websites, at no extra charge, I figured … Why not? I use social media marketing like there's no tomorrow. Does it help? I have no doubt it helped put my home biz projects on the cyberspace map. The fact that Facebook made it quick and easy to create business pages was a huge help! Maintaining a business page is just like passing out your business cards.

Not only is social media marketing a means of gaining exposure to potential customers, but it's also a way to connect with fellow entrepreneurs and share business advice, tips and tricks. If you can automate your social media sharing processes, that's great. There are many automation services available such as Hootsuite, BufferApp, and IFTTT. If you have to manually share, then do that. If you can automate and manually share, do both! Social media is the marketing tool people use now instead of or in addition to the yellow pages telephone directory. (If you can remember that far back.)

You should utilize as many social media platforms as you can. My SMM path was Facebook first. Then LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram. My LinkedIn profile serves as my resume and shows my work experience, my various work-at-home projects and how long I've been at this. Also, LI members have given me public reviews which are helpful. Twitter and the other networks are also for developing social signals, which are the likes, shares, and comments that your content receives. They are an important metric for analyzing the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts. Basically they let you know if people are interested in the product or services you offer and will become customers, subscribers, etc. It gives you an avenue to talk to them direct and one-on-one.

So my advice is that you should create a presence on all of the popular social media platforms and get your business and work out there. Sure it requires a lot of effort. But what business was ever a success without hard work? Part of that hard work includes persistent and consistent social media marketing efforts.

♦ REFERENCES and LINKS OF INTEREST:

Dunphy, Rachel. “Can YouTube Survive the Adpocalypse?” Intelligencer, Vox Media, Inc., 28 Dec. 2017.

Berler, Chelsea. “Are You a Socialpreneur?” Entrepreneur, 13 May 2015.

Newberry, Christina and LePage, Evan. “How to Create a Social Media Strategy in 8 Easy Steps (Free Template)” Hootsuite Blog, Hootsuite, Inc., 27 May 2020.

Shetti, Girish. “5 Mistakes You Might Be Making in Social Media Marketing.” Multichannel Merchant, Access Intelligence, LLC, 5 June 2020.

Smith, Keran. “Social Media SEO: What You Need to Know to Grow Your Business.” , Lyfe Marketing, 13 Jun. 2022.

Blog. “What Is Social Media Marketing? How Effective Is It In SEOs?” SMM Panel Deals, 2 Jul. 2022.

NOTE: My original content republished from Forum Coin.