Engage or Die! The power of social media to build and grow your business. 

By: Aileen Marie Nunez and Vince Bitana 

Introduction 

We are now living in a volatile and unpredictable world, especially in business. There are many things that are occupying the business leaders’ minds. The business world expands exponentially, trends change at a breakneck pace and competition is becoming fierce. Fortunately, there is credence that the answer to if not all then at least a lot of the business challenges would give much emphasis in engagement and social media platforms played a vital role in this aspect. Social media platforms take center stage in the business world today to reach out and influence people’s consumerism and lifestyles. Es. Any form of business present in our current era must engage in any digital marketing platform, particularly social media. Any existing business, regardless of its nature, which will not engage in any social media marketing will die.  

Businesses can thrive and grow successfully with social media marketing tools. However, as a business leader or an entrepreneur, it is profoundly essential to know how social media marketing works for you and your business. How can this build, cultivate, measure business success? How could you have a powerful and purposeful engagement with your customers and business affiliates through social media? Having engagement with our customers, to get a wider perspective, it is also significant to know demographic and psycho-graphic data to produce effective marketing campaigns. A thorough consideration of this knowing how social media marketing works for you and your business is essential information and data provide an expanded awareness and knowledge about what the audience who can be the potential customers. Appropriate use of these data sources is a better way for customer segmentation in your marketing, reaching the right customer is the way to the business and how social media marketing has profound impact in their lifestyle. As social media provides several ways to build and increase your engagement and business, there are also the dark sides of it that can harm your business strategy and your brand. It is best to look at these challenges and learn how to cope with them hence social media marketing is also evolving at speed.  

Social Media: Tool to build and grow your business. 

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok are social media platforms that can contribute brand awareness. As there are millions of users using them every day, there is visibility of your brand and business profile posts. As you do your marketing campaign through these platforms, you can reach your audience directly and create engagement with potential buyers. As you build customer engagement, it allows you to interact with customers in real-time, which is a way to establish connection. Being able to engage with them through responding to comments and messages on time and providing clear information leads to customer satisfaction. Social media platforms can scale your sales and network. Social media platforms have sophisticated advertising applications that allow you to gather valuable data like the target demographic of the business. Targeted advertising is knowing your client’s interest, tastes, and behavior which enables you to reach the right audience for your business and increases the possibility of converting them into paying customers. And this is a cost- effective and powerful advertising to reach your customers. Using social media data can generate valuable marketing research information. Able to use them effectively can better your engagement activities. With open accessibility to social media platforms, collaboration and partnership can come in handy so that you do not need any more to go out from your comfortable working space. You can reach them out and make collaboration virtually. Through networking and collaboration with other business-oriented individuals, this can bring new audiences and increase your business activities. However, not everything is easy and can go well, your time spent on engaging these platforms must bring results to your business. Be aware of how much it takes from your time and energy and are your gaining from all you invested. 

Overall, social media can be cost-effective and a powerful way to build and grow your business. However, it is important to have a clear strategy and goals in place and to regularly measure and evaluate your results to ensure that you are getting the most out of your social media efforts. (Chat GPT). 

Engage with a purpose 

It is ironic that most if not all organizations are being stimulated to do a lot of engagement just at a time when technology is making it effortless for everyone to go about their work with the least personal contact. Thus, for all the talk about being “connected” in the digital world, people and organizations have never been less authentically connected than they are now. 

As explained in the book that “the new rules of engagement” are as follows: 

(Solis 2010) 

1. Develop the discipline of really listening to your customers. It begins by developing the utmost respect and understanding of how we genuinely connect with and benefit those whom we are hoping to help and that is our customer. A meaningful content can really earn the creators trust, authority, and influence.  

1. Learn to take all the data gathered from customers and potential customers and turn it into insights. We are champions of our products and services and not just messengers, this powerful statement constitutes a more dynamic form of communication that is indeed required to succeed today. 

1. Act (that is, engage) on the insights by dealing with customers the way they want to be treated and when they want to be. It means that we need to embody a customer service mentality fueled with empathy and a deeper desire to deliver a resolution. 

4. Never forget that the business does not create the engagement process – the customer does.

5. Do not let anyone other than you define what your organization stands for.

1. Everyone in the company has the chance to influence the engagement process – for good or ill. Choose good. 

1. Guard content with your life. No content – whether email, video or whatever – should leave your company without being vetted by some kind of focus group or feedback pool. At a time when reactions can be swift and serious, this is vital. 

1. Never assume that what you knew to be true yesterday is true today. The pace and scale of change is so great that nothing can be taken for granted. 

But it does not end there. Solis adds, “What most people don’t realize is that engagement is an ever-changing process. You cannot just take a snapshot of what a customer thinks or what someone wants, draw a conclusion, and then move on. You have to constantly measure your customers’ values, their wants, their needs, their desires relative to the journey that they want to have, and as a result of what you learn you need to constantly fine-tune your business and your values.” 

Engaging with purpose goes beyond knowing customers interest and enticing them for purchase but establishing association and earning alliances. Our mindful engagement through intuition and awareness is earned by deep observation and immersion. With this, one can engage with both empathy and honesty. 

Demographic and Psycho-graphic data:  

Source for audience segmentation in marketing campaign 

The basic knowledge of every tool we use is one thing. But it is what we really hear, say, and learn that makes an impact across all generations and technologies. As stated in page 12 of the book, social science is no longer an elective. What I mean is that it has now evolved into a more sophisticated and it is more geared towards psycho graphics over demographics. The only way for us to learn and motivate multi-generational people is to see and connect those who are bonded together by tastes, preferences, interest, and passions all across generations regardless of age, location and gender. 

Demographics are statistical data that categorize and group the population by identifying different variables and subgroups. Professionals define demographic data based on aspects of a consumer such as gender, age, marital status, parental status, health, and financial status. Marketers use demographic data to create subgroups of the population they wish to market to base on those features. Demographic data is a foundation for audience segmentation in marketing. (Indeed 2023). 

While Psychographics are data that collect and categorize the population by using IAO (interests, activities, and opinions) characteristics. Psycho-graphic data focuses on the characteristics people can usually control, like values, lifestyle, needs, wants, concerns, hobbies, spending habits and attitude. Psychographics focuses on understanding the comprehensive personality of your consumer. (Indeed 2023). 

According to Indeed article about the distinctions between both and how we can best take advantage are the use both fundamentally different audience segmentation methods simultaneously to produce effective marketing campaigns. Here are some ways these methods compare to each other: 

Accessibility 

Though marketers tend to use demographic segmentation more often than psycho-graphic, it does not allow you to recognize the atypical behavior that might take place within certain subgroups. 

Demographic data is usually easier to obtain and implement than psycho-graphic data, but psycho-graphic data is usually far more effective than demographic data, especially for marketing on an individual level. 

Purpose 

Demographic data is quantitative, while psycho-graphic data is qualitative. That means the demographic data can tell you who a consumer is, while psychographics tells you why someone makes a purchase. By using both kinds of data, you have a comprehensive understanding of who your consumer is and what leads them to make a purchase.  

Application 

A marketer can use demographic data to create a rough draft of their target audience, then add psycho-graphic data to refine the notion and present a polished target consumer. In some marketing campaigns, demographic data can be used to attract an initial audience, while psycho-graphic data can convince them to buy into the brand and follow through with a purchase. 

Social media transform customer consumerism and lifestyle 

While the businesses are harvesting the benefits of social media marketing, how do social media platforms transform the consumers’ lifestyle? How do consumers benefit and what impact it brought to their preference and consumerism behavior? The difference with social media is the speed and ease in which this occurs as well as the sphere of influence.  (Qualman 2009). Social media can influence consumer behavior through product advertisements in any form, promotion, and recommendations. Consumers may find more value and confidence in buying and using products that are well advertised or much more if recommended. The “killer” tool of the first part of the internet boom was e-mail, and then along came e-commerce, e-care, search, music-video, and now social media. However, the new inbox now is shifting toward social media. (Qualman 2009). Social interaction, communication and engagement have rapidly changed in recent years. Through posting and direct messaging, people connect instantly anywhere, and anytime. Communication comes in speed and great accessibility, increasing easy purchasing mechanism. Qualman pointed out in his Socialnomics book that “We no longer search for the news, it finds us.”  Sales income from newspaper advertising companies have dropped down with the wider use of social media to promote products. Information is readily available in social media even without an effort of searching them. Social media algorithms played a huge role in this part. With the increased accessibility to information, consumers become more knowledgeable over the products and could get better choices from the vast options, and this can imply change in their lifestyle. There are still numerous transformations out there that social media can bring to every life of a consumer. These transformations profoundly bring benefits to increase consumption for products and services. 

Negative impacts of social media on business growth 

Businesses are reaping the benefits of social media. As social media platforms now become a wider use for promoting products and doing the company’s campaign ads, careful planning and posting are necessary as it could also experience negative impact to your business growth. A single wrong post or comment can turn your business into a tough situation. With social media, customers share their experience and feedback with the product openly. They can already speak out about what experience they had and no holding back when they give a negative review over your product or service. This negative feedback can damage your company’s reputation. If your marketing channel relies on social media, changes in algorithms can impact your visibility the other way around. If it will not bring an increase, then it will be the other way around. This can have decreased your business sales and growth. Managing your company social media platforms can consume enormous amounts of time, this can lead to distraction to other core activities of your business. With all information available on the web, consumers can compare their business with their competitors, they can differentiate which product stands out and this can lead to lower sales. Although marketing campaigns through social media is less pricey than the other existing product campaign strategy, companies still spend an amount to create content and manage your social media platform. Without the expected return on sales, money spent on your ads on social media would be a loss to your business.  

Conclusion 

Today, social media platforms extensively take the center stage of product and service promotion. Companies and organizations reap enormous benefits with social media platforms as their marketing channels. Through social media, business companies’ engagement with consumers becomes more accessible and able to provide better customer service manifesting empathy. It can increase visibility, expand networks, and increase profits. Meaningful contents and products visible value can influence buyers purchasing behavior. Through the utilization of customer demographics and psychographics, companies can effectively reach potential customers. Whilst businesses gain commercial and financial growth through the use of social media, consumers on the other hand have some perks too. Customers’ opinions are well heard, and attention is provided intently. They are not likely to be manipulated anymore, as information over the products and services is available for them to make their wise purchases. Truly, social media heavily influences customers’ consumerism behavior and transforms their lifestyle. Though social media may have negative impact in your business when not strategically utilized, however with better engagement and proper social media management, it can build, cultivate, and measure business success in the web.  

There is no way you can ignore the power of social media. Reach out and engage with your customers through social media platforms. Now is the time. Get engaged! 

References: 

Chat GPT. Searched on 27.4.2023 

Indeed Career Guide. 2023 

Demographics vs Psychographics in Audience Segmentation  

Read on 23.02.2023 

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/demographics-vs-psychographics 

Solis, B. 2011. Engage! The Complete Guide for Brands and Business to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web. 

USA & Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc  

Qualman, E. 2009. Socialnomics 

How social media transforms the way we live and do business 

USA & Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc