Digital Marketing Insights

What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Check Facebook? I’m sure that is the answer most of you would give. Because it’s true! Our obsession with social media is a reality! So here’s a blog telling you why social media is proving to be a better alternative than televised commercials and why brands are focusing on getting digital marketing strategy right.

For a long time now, television commercials have been the front face of a brand. Millions of rupees are spent on creating and showcasing the advertisements. For all you know, all the T.V. enabled homes have switched their idiot box and no-one is seeing the advertisement you created. As a result of being both, cost and time effective, as well a lot more accessed by the target audience, social media marketing seems to have found its place as the next big thing in marketing.

We live in a world where Facebook is digested before the breakfast! On an average, almost 57% of time during the day is spent on social networking sites. A dose of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube have become as essential as taking medicines. In 2011, economists predicted that the TV ads would see a 6 % increase in revenue. But the summer saw a receding growth of only 2%. Social media marketing not only enables the brand to have a wider reach but also allows specific targeting of consumers. This reduces the cost and increases the return on investment.

Creating a TV advertisement is not only a tedious job but also time consuming. Starting off with the concept, a TV advert then goes through multiple stages of shooting. Deciding on the right concept is essential as the brand ends up spending a lot of money on the advert. And to top it all, there are the millions that get spent on showcasing it on various channels. But if you are smart, and use social media for marketing, all this could be done faster and more easily. Using social media is so simple that you can literally sit and home and reach thousands of people. Facebook alone reportedly has more than 1 billion registered users. And if you don’t fancy typing away on the keys of a keyboard, telling the world what you want to say, you can always hire a digital marketing company that will happily do the needful for you.

One of the major problems that brands face with TV commercials is feedback. The only way to attain feedback from consumers involves carrying out a survey and then analyzing the numbers. But with social media, feedback is almost instant and can be easily measured by tracking websites and tools. Besides, with its possible outreach to billions of people, social media also helps you to reduce, filter, and appropriately choose your target audience. You can carry out posts on relevant pages, which are frequented only by people who are interested in that subject. Example, a diet supplement company would market on health related or weight-loss related pages. This narrows down its target audience and still reaches relevant people. This is a privilege that a TV commercial cannot afford!

So, the mighty television commercial as we know it, might be on its way to being dethroned! Even if it’s not in the near future, it will happen! Because mass marketing is passé, the era of mass customization is here to stay!

What are your thoughts on this? Agree, disagree, or couldn’t care less? Tell me in the comments!

Atish Hemade