2019 is a very interesting year for marketers, especially in the area of social media marketing. There are so many changes that social media platforms have gone through for the past few years. As a result, there are many users who began to drop out of using social media.
Looking at this statistic given by Statista.com, we can see the percentage of users who have stopped using various social media platforms from the year 2014 – 2018.
There were many reasons that contribute to these percentages. Some of the social media platforms listed can’t live up to the standards of other leading platforms. Some platforms are favourable to be used as political propaganda channels and some platforms are filled with crazy amounts of advertisements.
With the declining rate of social media channels, there are a number of measures taken by social media giants like Facebook and YouTube to overcome these situations.
In late 2019, Facebook and Instagram have started to hide like counts on their social media posts in the hope to encourage users to create better quality content; and emphasising that the number of likes is not equivalent to good content.
This move has crippled many of the businesses that have always focused on the number of likes to boost their brands and products. And many of them are certainly not happy about it.
YouTube is also changing its ways of showing people their subscriber count. While the subscriber numbers are rounded up, it’s harder for analytics to get precise data on the growth rate of the channel.
Looking at both of the decisions made by the current leading social media platforms, we can clearly see a trend that says number isn’t everything. Uploading and creating content is so easy these days, all you need to have is a smartphone and you can create and publish an article, photo or video to your desired social media platform.
I’ve mentioned it again and again in my previous posts that marketing is heading into a different direction. While the implementation of strategies is still mostly the same, the way we create our content must change.
Conversion percentage is the most important thing to look at. You can have 100,000 likes on a post. But if out of the 100,000 only 10 people would purchase your products, that post is considered a failure.
However, if you have only 100 likes and 50 of them converts into your customer, that’s a huge win.
In an average setting, good social media marketing content should yield around 10-15% of the conversion rate.
Businesses need to look into this factor more than ever. Nowadays, almost every business has a digital online presence. If you’re not in you’re going to lose out. However, if you’re in, you’re competing with a huge number of people selling the same services and products.
The ultimate deciding factor that makes you stand out is the value and services that you can provide to the customer. These days, consumers are smart curators. They have countless resources in their hands to help them make decisions on which brand and services they should go for.
For instance, if you’re looking for a place to dine, you would go into Google reviews to look at the restaurant review. Regardless of how fancy the menu and the setting are marketed; if the ratings are bad, most likely you’re not getting the sales.
Brands need to understand this, it’s no longer just painting the thing that the customer wants to see. It’s about building that relationship, confidence and trust with the customers.
And at the end of the day, when your brand gets this right, the number of followers you have will definitely gradually increase.
Don’t get too fixated in building the numbers on your social media channels. Instead, think of the value you can offer to all your current and potential customers. Once they’ve seen what you’re offering, they will come to you.
If you’re still thinking what does value content mean? And how is it done? Here’s an article to help you understand better.
