Value of Social Media: What does it do for Advertisers?

What is the value of social media? Seems like a simple enough question. This article will explore the value social media has for advertisers. To start, what is value? It can mean different things but in this article value will be defined as, “relative worth, merit or importance”, as defined by Dictionary.com. Why is social media important to advertisers?

Social media advertising is more than buying an ad on the site; advertisers could also create pages, these pages are free, on social media where consumers can follow what that advertiser is up to. It takes a lot of work and commitment to create a successful social media page due to the constant updating that needs to be maintained to keep consumers entertained and engage with their comments. Many companies will inform consumers of specials, coupons, upcoming events, giveaways, what’s new and different updates using their social media pages. The model for social media marketing is generally different than traditional marketing; the consumer comes to the advertiser/company by “liking” or “following” a company, and with 53 percent of active adult social media network users follows a brand (Nielsen, 1) these social media pages need to be interesting to the consumers.

With more people on social media than ever, consumers have many ways to connect to anything they watch and buy. “In the U.S., social networks and blogs reach nearly 80 percent of active U.S Internet users and represent the majority of Americans’ time online” (Nielsen, 1).

Consumers see a barrage of advertisements when they log onto Facebook and other social media, but what is the evaluation of social media from an advertiser’s perspective? For some marketers that participated in a survey, social media is more of an engagement tool and not a something that will necessarily generate new business; although some advertisers disagree with this assessment (Baker). Although some advertisers have a hard time justifying the use or money spent on social media, 74.5 percent of marketers that participated in Baker’s survey noted they would increase spending in 2012 on social media. In another survey, 57 percent of consumers felt like they were better served by a business if they can have direct contact with them via social media (Calbreath). 60 percent of social media users create reviews of products and services and consumer-created reviews are the preferred source of information about products (Nielsen, 10). As these numbers about social media continue to increase, it gives advertisers something to think about when building their media plans.

With visual social media coming onto the scene, with not all advertisers jumping onto the “older” social media bandwagon, how is Pinterest being used and evaluated by advertisers? Ki Mae Heussner states that “retailers were among the first to join to social scrapbooking site. But marketers of all kinds will soon realize they’d better start pinning too” (11). In January 2012, Pinterest drove more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined and in February 2012, Pinterest had 11.7 million unique visitors in the United States alone (Heussner, 11). Advertisers are finding value in Pinterest whether they are pinning recipes that use their product or pin their latest fashion trends if they are a clothes retailer; whatever their product, advertisers have a new platform to connect to the consumer and share the brand personality like never before (Heussner, 11).

Although advertisers have so many options and ways to use social media it becomes clear that if used correctly, these avenues can be of great importance to reaching the target audiences for the advertiser. With so many adults using social media and their willingness to engage with brands, social media gives advertisers ample opportunity to reach new and existing customers.

Sources

• Baker, Rosie. “Marketers Query Value of Social Media”. Marketing Week (Online), 2012. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.
• Calbreath, Dean. “Evaluating the Value of Social Media”. McClatchy – Tribune Business News, Feb 25 2010. Web. 7 Dec. 2012.
• Heussner, Ki Mae. “Brands Pinning it on Pinterest”. Adweek, 53.7 (2012): 11. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.
• Nielsen. “State of the Media: The Social Media Report Q3 2011”. Web. 21 Nov. 2012.
• “Value” Dictionary.com LLC. 2012. Web.