With many social media platforms being free and open to the public, many businesses are running social media sites on their own to try and save money on a professional. While this might work if the business only has one platform or a dedicated staff member to monitor the sites, it might be detrimental to your name brand if you are not allocating enough of your resources and time to effectively run it.

There are lots of advantages to social media with communication tools built in to speak to a big crowd of customers and potential customers but also a way to speak to individuals one on one. That’s why businesses like to utilize this tool. It is a one stop shop to communicate with your customer and to raise brand awareness. You can even pay for ads to show to people who are not your customer and track who sees it, where they are from, and invite them to like your business page for future communication.

However, social media is not a one stop shop to fix every problem. Joyce Rosenberg warns that small businesses especially are trying to be on all social media, but that’s not always best for the business. A business needs to know its audience and which social media is best to reach that audience. The message also needs to shift based on what social media platform one uses. It can’t be a post that transfers exactly from facebook, to twitter, to instagram, to linkedin.

Even when you are focusing your message to the platform or platforms that work best for you, there is still the problem of Dark Social Media.

Dark Social Media is similar to the traditional marketing of “word of mouth.” It’s not easily tracked. There are sites like snapchat, facebook messenger, and more that people use to communicate and they may or may not be talking about your business.

So how much of social media is dark social media? Hootsuite estimated that 82% of content shared on mobile was done through dark social media. That’s a large amount that businesses cannot really get a grasp if it is good or bad things being shared. That means that businesses only get to control the message of their brand on about 18% of social media. With that limited amount, it is very important for businesses to use social media to its fullest extent and to get the best return on investment (ROI).

Veldeman, Praet, and Merchant found that “80% of B2B U.S. companies find social media very challenging, showing a need for more knowledge, resources, and confidence. Similarly, many Dutch (28%) and U.K. (30%) B2B companies, active on social media, work without  a strategy, missing out on several opportunities.”

Businesses are not alone, but there is help with social media. Do not miss an opportunity because of your social media management. Control your business message with social media.

Resources:

• The 60 Second Marketer: 4 Social Media Metrics You should be Paying Attention to. Chatham: Newstex, 2017. ProQuest. Web. 3 Oct. 2017. Web.

• Rosenberg, Joyce. (2017), “With many social media options, small businesses need focus,” AP Financial. Web.
• Veldeman, Céline, Ellen Van Praet, and Peter Mechant. (2017), “Social Media Adoption in Business-to-Business: IT and Industrial Companies Compared,” International Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 54, Issue 3, pp 283-305.