For a time, social media was one of the most important aspects of having an online presence particularly for businesses looking to connect with their customers and their audience. Having representation across all platforms allowed businesses to connect with all audiences from all ages and interests and was an incredibly useful tool.
For some, it was a great way to grow a business personality too. Online casino sites and online betting sites were some of the most well known for this, big brands like PaddyPower gained a lot of attention for their Twitter presence especially, and helped to grow a new type of social media management in which a business would be more known for their online personality.
(Image from SocialChamp)
In recent years, this use of social media as a business tool has become much more nuanced, some of the bigger platforms have started to lose a significant number of users as they’ve moved on to alternative platforms or have moved away from social media as a whole, but there are still aspects to social media that can make it vital for business.
Business have evolved to develop content specifically for different platforms, image based content through the likes of Instagram has been vital for visual businesses, shorts through TikTok are vital for more creative types, and Twitter has remained a popular home for those looking develop a personality too. But as the number of users on these platforms had started to shrink, businesses have had to become more creative with the way they use these platforms for the same effect.
There are of course the same built in advertising opportunities through business sides of these platforms, Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads have been staples within business for well over a decade, even LinkedIn has its own business center that has been extremely successful for businesses who are able to use it in the right way too.
For now, the only thing that is changing are the users, for those that stick to the old guard of social media like Facebook are typically aging users and require a very different type of advertising to the younger audiences on platforms like TikTok, these younger audiences on other platforms are typically more tech savvy too and so the types of advertising methods will be different too. The effectiveness of social media is only as good as the social media team pushing them forward too.
Whether or not it’s still vital for the business now is largely dependent on the business, where once it was important for nearly every business to develop their online presence, today users may be less likely to engage in certain markets or with certain social media platforms, in the same way that many individuals are looking to return to a different type of presence too. One industry for example is within physical books, shoppers are looking to return to a physical store with physical books rather than digital options, and as such are less reliant on a social media platform for a physical store.
For now it looks like social media is here to stick around and the business profiles are sticking around on them too, but user numbers are shrinking and the reliance for social media platforms is shrinking too, making it less vital for businesses in general particularly as users continue to change.
