The United States is the largest social media advertising market in the world, as more than 14.8 billion U.S. dollars were spent on social media advertisements in the country in 2016 alone.

Social media started as an entertainment tool and later evolved into a powerful marketing tool. While serving the primary purpose of connecting people, social media also plays a major role in connecting marketers with customers.

Approximately 48 billion U.S. dollars in 2021. The United States is, by far, the largest social media advertising market in the world, as more than 14.8 billion U.S. dollars were spent on social media ads in the country in 2016 alone.

History of Social Media

The concept of social media is as old as the technology, however, it gained its hype with the advent of the internet. With more people spending time online, they enjoy indulging in conversations that help to grow communities. Marketing basically helps a person or an entity to spread their word to many people.

However, social media can only be ascertained;

• Social media must include online communication, hence the history of social media before the internet can’t be taken into account.
• Social media depends on user-generated content. Website and blogs can’t be included.

When the internet found its way into public in the 1990s, it gave birth to the idea of the personal computer. More people started using the internet at home. Yahoo messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and MSN Messenger were the initial social media sites used solely for that chat.

Back in 2005, social media penetration in the U.S. was just 5%, and most of the world was still unfamiliar with the concept of social media.

The invention of Hi5, Orkut, and Facebook gave birth to the new age of social media. In 2006, Facebook launched advertising and allowed targeted advertising in 2007 that helped the marketers to align their online marketing goals to generate leads. Social media marketing in the US helped many great online products to find markets

According to Statista, by 2019 about 91% of American use social media.

Benefits of social media marketing

The importance of social media marketing is more than you can ever count. To make things easy, there are a few major benefits that you can churn from your social media campaigns.

i. Brand Awareness

The prime objective of every marketing is to increase brand awareness. The popularity and reliability of any brand is its greatest asset. Social media helps to increase your business’ visibility and increase its outreach to more audience.

Social media marketing is one of the most cost-efficient digital marketing methods today, hence, it has become the most used online tool to syndicate content and increase the audience base. Like, Share, and Re-share is the three most powerful elements of any social media. Implementing the right social media strategy will not only increase your brand recognition but help to decrease the overall marketing cost.

ii. Higher Conversion

Marketing is always goal-centric, with the ultimate goal of being engaging more users for higher conversion. With increased visibility, brand awareness, reliability, and customer satisfaction come an increase in sales.

Personalization and personifying are two great tools of Social media marketing that helps your business to make a positive impact through a humanization factor. The closer the message is to your customer, the higher the chances they will engage with you. Personifying helps to re-image the brand as a human that actually interacts with people, inquire about their troubles, and share informative news.

Social media has a better trust-factor than any other marketing tools in the world, thanks to people’s reliability on social media for entertainment, business, and communication.

Over 51% of marketers claimed that taking the time to develop relationships with consumers showed positive results in sales.

As reported by Social Media Examiner, about 66% of marketers saw lead generation benefits by using social media platforms at least 6 hours per week.

iii. Promote Product and Services

With brand awareness comes the recognition of their product and services. If people like the Facebook page of Kentucky Fried Chicken, they’ll definitely talk about their crispy chicken bucket as well.

Promoting products and services is the ultimate goal of any brand awareness, and social media helps to promote your products at a cheaper cost than most online marketing tools.

Creating a conversation around your products ultimately help to increase your sales. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s targeted marketing tools help to place potential ads in front of your audience to create the buzz. This in return, helps to engage your audience to your website.

iv. Customer Satisfaction

With most people using social media on their smartphone and laptop a daily basis for work or entertainment, engaging them through Social media marketing is easier. When you engage with your audience, they appreciate knowing that when they post comments on your social media pages they will receive a personalized response rather than an automated message. Being able to acknowledge each feedback shows that you are attentive of your visitors' needs and aim to provide the best experience.

Customers demonstrate strong voice. If they dislike any service or a business, they will share their experience in social media that will be read by thousands of readers. This can turn your marketing process in a disaster. Rather than earning profits, you’ll be spending on damage-control instead.

A brand devoted to customer satisfaction will excel for a long time.

v. Cost Effective

Social media marketing is possibly the most cost-efficient marketing processes in the world. Anyone with internet can sign-up for social media accounts. A business can build a corporate page on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram completely free of cost. The only stuff you have to pay is for paid advertising and campaigns targeted to grow likes, followers, or the audience.

It is cost-effective also because you can see a greater return on investment in a smaller budget or expenses. Advertising on social media tends to be cheaper than using Google Adwords.

Social media sites like Facebook offers market data and demographics that help to fine-tune your marketing campaign. Optimized marketing campaigns help to lessen the overall cost of advertising.

Here are the 8 steps tool-agnostic approach for social media strategy.

Why we should perform social media marketing?

We all know that performing social media marketing is crucial, however, why should we market ourselves in social media. Well, here are a few important reasons.

a. For Inbound Traffic

In comparison to outbound marketing, inbound marketing tends to be more effective and cheaper. The conversion and ROI (Return on Investment) also tend to be higher. With millions of users in social media, you can easily receive visitors to your website or blog.

b. Improved Search Engine Experience

Search engine optimization is essential to achieve higher page rankings and to obtain traffic to your website. Although social media doesn't directly affect your search engine rankings, it helps to curate content that helps to rank your website or blog better.

More people will find your content online that can definitely help to improve the search engine experience.

c. Better Online Conversion

Compared to outbound marketing (Emails, Google searches, and newsletters), inbound marketing has a higher conversion rate. People will only buy from you when they trust you, and inbound marketing helps to earn trust rather than directly sell products or services.

d. Customer Satisfaction

The people who like your page or follows your stories are more likely to stay with you. Most people who engage with you in social media tends to be your regular customers.

e. Brand Loyalty

Customer satisfaction leads to brand loyalty. People who follow you on will likely refer you to their friends, colleagues, or family. They will share or re-share your content that will help earn more engagement.

f. Thought Leadership

Posting insightful and unique content on your social media is a great way to amass followers. You can become an expert and leader in your field, and people would listen to you. Be communicative, connect with your audience, share content, and promote your authority that in return will allow you to become a notable influencer in your field.