By June Seow
#1
“Did you see the picture of the salted egg yolk cronut Sersay posted on Instagram yesterday? I was sitting there wondering, why my phone screen was glistening with water. It took me awhile to realise that my mouth was still hanging open… We really need to try that café out!”
#2
“Yeah, I see you’ve been working out quite frequently from your snapchat! You’ve been going to spinning classes at the new place in Jalan Westeros too, right? It looks so sick, dude. I think I’m definitely gonna sign up for their beginner classes.”
#3
“Hey Ariah, I’m good, man. You just got back from Davos City right? I saw your holiday pictures on Facebook. I’ve been meaning to visit there. The shopping looks so good! I’m all about free trade and one-off items. I read on a travel blog also that the seafood there is super fresh, especially the oysters and cockles. Is that true?”
Do any of these three scenarios ring a little bell in your head? If yes is your answer to that question because you’ve found yourself in a similar situation before, read on. If you were sharp enough to catch the Game of Thrones references, high-5, we would definitely be fast friends! Now, do your future pal a solid and read this blogpost please. BUT if your answer was no, then I urge you to continue reading anyways because this article was written specifically with you in mind.
It is undeniably true that a lot of what we do are heavily influenced by the latest trends. Especially from the internet. Be it whether you want a taste of the salted egg yolk cronut or to sign up for a couple of spinning classes! The social media is able to leave a profoundly powerful and lasting impact on its audience. In this era where everyone and everything is connected, we are able to obtain real-time updates on our loved ones. The world is made small as everyone is able to keep in touch with the latest happenings and constantly stay in the loop.
Surprisingly, businesses rely on social media in a similar way we individual humans do; to maintain relationships, reach out to people, share and spread ideas, and to express a more fun, creative side to their oftentimes, serious façade..
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Maintaining Relationships
Just like how we use Twitter or Facebook to upkeep relationships on a daily basis, businesses too can use social media in the same way. Social media presents us with a very unique and simple platform for companies to communicate with their audience. Communicating on social media strips away the formalities you would usually expect to find in a conversation between a company and its client and helps to promote a more casual, easygoing company-client relationship which at the end of the day, will undoubtedly strengthen the bond between both parties.
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Reaching Out to People
An example of a company with a beautiful goal when it comes to their use of social media is Dove. With their motto of “helping all women realize their personal beauty potential.”, Dove is constantly creating content aimed at making women truly feel good about themselves. With the use of special hashtags such as #ChooseBeautiful and inspirational videos circulating the internet, it is no wonder their Facebook mentions increased by 71%! Besides that, a poll conducted showed that a staggering 71% of the women who participated in Dove’s Ad Makeoever campaign said they felt more beautiful. This just goes to show how powerful an impact social media can make on its audience.
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The Sharing and Spreading of Ideas
Think back to the times when advertisements actually meant manual labor: hardcopy printouts of posters and flyers, physically pinning them onto noticeboards or handing them out to passing pedestrians. Luckily for us, technology evolves very quickly and in the blink of an eye noticeboards have been replaced by sites like Facebook and Twitter. Sharing ideas and information have never been simpler! All it takes is literally just one click of the button for our content to be shared to hundreds and thousands of people. What’s even better is that now we are even able to track and analyse how well our posts do thanks to the abundance of social media analytics tools! We can not only control what time we decide to post an advertisement for maximum audience reach, but we can also decide the age group of the audience we want to share an infographic with!
That’s just the tip of the iceberg on what social media can do for businesses. If you look closely, you’ll notice a common pattern between the companies that are prominent in this digital age – their bold use of social media. So, what are you waiting for?? It’s time to take advantage of these tools if you haven’t already! See you on Instagram!
