The social media networks bring formidable benefits to businesses trading online, and more companies plan to increase their social-media spending this year. Traditional sales forces understand their products and focus on convincing business owners, consumers, and purchasing agents to place orders. Few salespeople study their customers’ habits in detail, but some do. Media advertising creates desire for brands through big-picture promotions and blanket advertising. Social media networks combine the best features of all advertising venues, enabling companies to target demographic audiences with tailored advertising campaigns that produce higher returns on investments.
The Phorm CrunchBase profile offers a free database that companies, investors, and consumers can edit to share insights, opportunities, branding preferences, and other valuable data. Social networks have changed the way people advertise because companies can create interactive campaigns that focus on the needs and buying habits of viewers. Advantages for companies that advertise on social websites include the following benefits.
- Competitive analysis allows companies to assess what the competition offers consumers.
- Tracking data uncovers information about potential clients, their preferences, and spending habits, which show risks and opportunities.
- Listening platforms can check social media posts to discover hot trends, consumer opinions, and sales leads.
- Branding intelligence creates extraordinary opportunities for custom advertising geared to match viewer preferences.
- Companies get direct comments about new industry developments, trends, and topics from end-users instead of relying on third-party data.
The Phorm CrunchBase profile allows companies and consumers to gather vital information about social media networks such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Tagged, and LinkedIn. This valuable intelligence helps aggressive marketing companies leverage browsing information from generic ISPs to target consumers with relevant advertising and protect viewers’ security by advising them of potential scams on the websites they visit.
Businesses have increased social media advertising budgets, but few companies spend more than $10,000. Companies fear the cost of hiring staff to manage social media promotions, but accurate targeting and metrics analysis lead to great financial results. Companies like Phorm offer companies the ability to target customers in fully integrated marketing campaigns.
Most companies struggle to measure their returns on investments, and advertising results often prove ambiguous. Social media advertising allows companies to take part in direct dialogues with their customers, and this increased exposure helps strengthen customer loyalty. More than 88 percent of marketers consider exposure the top benefit of social media networking. Only 10 percent of small businesses have no plans to advertise in the social media in 2012. Companies invest valuable resources in the networks, and more efficient targeting and analytics make these investments pay profitable dividends.