Category: Social

Social media stats are useful to review as you’re preparing to fine-tune your social media for the new year. If you look at the jaw-dropping social media stats below, however, we’d bet you’ll be inspired to do something about them.

The past year has shown us, more than ever, how important social media is as a marketing medium. In our work with clients at Rallio, we’ve also helped them gain a competitive advantage by optimizing their use of social platforms.

As you read these social media stats, be sure to put the action items into practice. Knowledge is power, but only if you use the knowledge to advance your goals.

General Social Media Stats

Browse the most noteworthy social media stats, and you’ll see that nearly half the world’s population is on social media. That’s over 3.6 billion people worldwide, notes Statista — a number that will grow to over 4.4 billion by 2025. (Some estimates put that figure even higher.)

Those are numbers you simply can’t afford to ignore. Your audience is already on social media, and it’s up to you to capitalize on the opportunity.

Action item: If you lack a social media presence entirely or haven’t put much effort into it, make social media a priority in 2021. Start by posting local content such as real photos and videos, engage with your audience by responding to comments and messages, and make sure you’re responding to online reviews.

Related: The Year in Review: Our Most Popular Blog Posts of 2020

Social Media and the Pandemic

Some 93% of U.S. adults say that a major interruption to their internet or cell phone service amid the pandemic would be problematic in their daily lives, according to the Pew Research Center. Although the majority do not see technology as a replacement for in-person contact, they see digital options as an aid during these times.

We’ve seen these statistics play out on social media as people turn to their feeds for the latest updates, inspiration and information from their favorite brands. We’ve encouraged companies to keep marketing themselves with the help of social media. 

Action item: When times get tough, that’s not the time to throw in the towel on your marketing. Ramp it up instead to make sure you’re still getting your message out to your followers.

Employee Advocacy

The use of employees and influencers to promote brands continues to be on the rise. Weber Shandwick reports these jaw-dropping social media stats: 98% of employees use at least one social media network for personal use, and of those, half of them are already posting about their company. 

These third-party endorsements, so to speak, impact buying behavior. Convince & Convert notes that 83% of Americans are more likely to purchase a product or service that’s recommended by a friend or family member.

Forbes further reports that brand messages shared by employees on social media reach 561 more people than those shared on a brand’s social media channels. They also earn eight times more engagement.

Need some dollar figures to wrap your head around? One November 2020 study in Public Relations Review found a correlation between employee advocacy and sales. “When people are talking about your organization, it helps elevate brand recognition, especially for companies that are in the sales realm and have growing goals,” states one study participant.

Gartner adds that a lead generated through employee advocacy or social selling is seven times more likely to close than those originating from other lead-gen tactics.

Bottom line: The evidence speaks volumes, and the stats above are just a fraction of the research showing the effectiveness of employee advocacy. 

Action item: Formalize an employee advocacy program that encourages employees to post brand-approved assets about your business. Gamify the process with leaderboards and rewards. Rallio has technology and tools to help you get it done.

Social Media Advertising

Marketers have tuned in to the effectiveness of social media advertising, something we coach our clients through regularly. Status Brew reports that the total percentage of marketing budgets devoted to social media ads is expected to nearly double by 2023. Moreover, 26% of people who click on Facebook ads end up making a purchase.

Read that again. Twenty. Six. Percent.

That figure doesn’t even account for the percentage of people who end up making a purchase after the fact. That is, ads are just one part of the overall marketing ecosystem that contributes to your lead gen and sales. They might become aware of your company through an ad, see it mentioned by a friend on social media, or come across one of your boosted local posts. 

Related: The Most Important Social Media Metrics to Track for ROI

Action item: Define your audience — their demographics, geographic location, interests and other characteristics. Boost high-performing content and local posts, targeted at that audience, to ensure more of your content gets seen than it would with organic reach alone. 

Social Media as a Customer Service Channel

In a case of social media hubris, some 80% of companies online believe they deliver exceptional social media service, according to Smart Insights. Only 8% of their customers agree with them.

Smart Insights adds that 21% of consumers prefer to message a brand on social media rather than pick up the phone. And 49% of consumers are likely to unfollow a brand if they experience poor customer service, says Influencer Marketing Hub.

Action item: Use the above social media stats to fuel your customer service on social media. When customers leave online reviews, send direct messages or interact with your content, make sure you respond quickly — ideally, within the hour, but no more than 24. To streamline the process, use technology like Rallio to pull all your engagements into one inbox. 

Handle any negative reviews with professionalism — a rude reply will get you unfollowed, too, and could have lasting repercussions. Your remarks could wind up living on indefinitely if your customer shares your response with their network, or if future customers see the interaction.

Social Media Stats on Stats on Stats

There are too many social media stats to mention in this article. If you want to go down a rabbit hole, by all means, don’t let us stop you. 

This post needs to stop somewhere, though, so we’ll leave you with a handful of extra social media stats mentioned by Influencer Marketing Hub:

• Of the internet users aged 16 to 64, 98% of them had visited or used a social network or messaging app in the past month. 
• In fact, those same 16- to 64-year-olds are on social media for roughly 2.5 hours a day.
• Facebook remains the most popular social network, with 2.7 billion monthly active users. 
• The top four mobile apps are Facebook, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram.

When all is said and done, the social media stats above show that opportunities abound for social media marketers. When you partner with Rallio for your social media technology and marketing needs, you can create some jaw-dropping social media stats of your own.

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As you look back at your social analytics from 2020, you’ll likely see a few social media marketing lessons emerge. You’ll see the types of content that performed the best — and the types that should head back to the drawing board. 

With the pandemic thrown into the equation this year, the social media marketing lessons may have revolved around pivoting quickly. In the face of adversity, your social media content needed to shine — and it still does. We’re still in this thing.

Look to the Social Media Marketing Lessons Learned in 2020

Lesson 1: You Need a Balance Between Promotional and Non-Promotional Content

As lockdowns began and people increasingly turned to social media at all hours of the day, your social media pages became lifelines to your brand. You’ve likely been communicating logistical information such as store hours, in-person shopping policies and any shipping delays. You’ve also hopefully been sharing inspirational content like pictures of your staff and customers.

At the same time, you may have learned the importance of communicating special sales and offers. Without the ability or desire to go into stores as frequently, social media has become a resource for new product and service announcements. 

Just introduced a cool new gadget? Your social feed is the perfect place to let your followers know about it. In the days leading up to the announcement, you can build excitement. With ad funding to boost your content, your announcements go even farther.

When the majority of your page contains local content, and when you take the time to build relationships with your followers, then your promos will be well-received. Ad funding helps you boost both non-promotional and promotional content to extend your reach.

Social media marketing lessons learned: Keep using your social pages to communicate with, inspire, entertain and inform your audience. Continue dedicating part of your overall marketing budget to social ads.

Related: 7 Habits of Highly Successful Social Media Marketers

Lesson 2: Good Customer Service Is Essential

This is one of the most impactful social media marketing lessons you could learn from 2020. As people started turning to social media more frequently amid the pandemic, they also increasingly took to social to air concerns. Online reviews, comments on your page and direct messages with customer service inquiries have become commonplace.

The cost of ignoring these customer service issues can be huge. Nothing will tarnish your online reputation faster than reviews without responses from the brand, comments and messages that get ignored, and poorly crafted responses to customer questions or complaints. 

Your response time matters, too. Consumers expect rapid answers — just as rapid as if they picked up the phone and called. Within minutes is ideal if you have the bandwidth, but you should at least be responding within 24 hours.

With a system for responding to customer inquiries, you can handle their requests quickly and build customer loyalty. You’ll also make it known that you’re a trustworthy brand when you post public responses to reviews, questions or complaints.

Social media marketing lessons learned: With more and more customer service matters brought to social media nowadays, you need a clear process for handling these issues. Otherwise, you risk having things fall through the cracks.

The Rallio Dashboard gives you one central inbox pulling in your social comments, questions and reviews. We also have an entire Rallio Local division dedicated to responding to brands’ online reviews, comments and messages. 

With both the technology and the team to help you manage your online reputation, Rallio helps you take control of your brand. Contact us to get more information.

Related: How to Handle Negative Online Reviews

Lesson 3: Activating Employees and Influencers Expands Your Reach

Among the social media marketing lessons learned: We’re all in this together, and that includes your employees and influencers working on your behalf. 

The past year has seen the exponential growth of employee and influencer content. With employees and influencers posting brand-approved assets, there’s an element of confidence established. People are more likely to trust the recommendation of a third party over the brand itself. Social Media Today reports that content shared by employees receives eight times more engagement than content shared by brands.

When you activate and incentivize employees and influencers, you can build an entire army of content creators. They’ll be able to introduce your brand to new followers — their own friends and an endless list of friends of friends — who otherwise might not ever come across your brand.

Social media marketing lessons learned: Again, you need a system and process for activating employees and influencers, as well as rewarding them for posting. The Rallio Activate platform gives you just that. Schedule a no-obligation demo with us to find out how it works, and be sure to mention this blog post for a special promotional offer for your 2021 marketing budget.

Lesson 4: Social Media Tools Are There for a Reason

Throughout the past year, many brands have moved beyond simple image-based posts to incorporate video, Stories, Reels and other animated content. The reason is simple: As more people have turned to social media, the challenge has become even greater to capture their attention.

In a sea of other content creators, social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook provide a variety of tools to help you get creative and differentiate yourself. What might otherwise be a ho-hum post with little to no engagement can become instantly more interesting if you put a little effort into making it come to life. 

Social media marketing lessons learned: Video content allows you to put a voice to your message and really show off your brand’s personality. Make an effort to liven up your page with a wide variety of content that includes both images and videos.

Related: Your Guide to 2021 Marketing Based on Current Consumer Trends

Take These Social Media Marketing Lessons Into 2021

The social media marketing lessons of the past year will help you prepare a 2021 strategy that gets results. There’s no need to guess what works and what doesn’t, because you have the analytics and insights needed to make informed decisions.

With newly established relationships with your customers and followers, aim to continue building loyalty among your customer base. The people who have followed your page, purchased from your business, and given you their support in this tumultuous year deserve your recognition and thanks. 

They’ll gladly give you theirs in return if you keep the focus on them and not you.

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The holiday shopping season has already begun, as marketers cater to early-bird shoppers looking for bargains. Holiday marketing efforts are well underway as brands create early Black Friday deals, Cyber Monday specials and other holiday sales blitzes. 

Meanwhile, shoppers are ready to pull out their holiday decorations early, string up the outdoor lights, and start putting gifts under the tree. No, we’re not skipping Thanksgiving — but you can expect the next six weeks to be one giant holiday as people seek out joyful experiences amid the pandemic.

The Current Situation

Not only are people shopping early, but COVID-19 has also driven many shoppers online, whether due to store closures or the desire for socially distanced shopping. Even those who shop in-store want the convenience of curbside pickup, touch-free payment and other safe shopping options.

As we discuss in this article: “We’ll continue to see a rise in contact-free options for making reservations, ordering food, checking in, shopping for goods and services, and earning loyalty rewards. By eliminating common touchpoints, businesses are providing a clean, safe, convenient way to carry out tasks that previously required much more hands-on interaction.”

It’s not just your holiday marketing that should address COVID-19 changes, but also the marketing plans you put in place next year. While there may be initial costs associated with making these changes, there’s no real way to avoid it if you want to stay relevant in 2021. 

“The cost of implementing these new technologies is an upfront expense that may prove to be a burden for some businesses. However, this is a necessary expenditure if you want to survive and thrive in 2021,” the article continues. “Consumers now expect there to be contact-free and ecommerce options if they’re going to give you their business.

This holiday season, you have an opportunity to shift your holiday marketing to address the current shopping trends. To make sure your holiday marketing is on point, we’ve put together this guide to optimizing your social media pages.

Create Gift Guides

Focus your holiday marketing on helping people find the right gifts for friends and family. Start by creating a downloadable gift guide where you highlight various gift recommendations for your followers.

You can then repurpose different elements of your gift guide on different platforms. Carousel posts, Stories, Reels, Live broadcasts and shoppable posts are just a few of the ways you can optimize your holiday marketing for your gift guide.

Instagram, for one, has rolled out new features that make it easier than ever for consumers to discover new products and buy directly from the platform. The shopping tab includes a Shops Directory, Guides, shoppable posts that let people buy without visiting a website, Editor’s Picks, and Brand Collections.

On Facebook, you could publish photos and videos of different gift-guide offerings. You can also link directly to your website with unique offers for your Facebook fans. 

Take advantage of each platform’s unique features to amplify your results. Be sure to advertise to further your reach, and pair your strategy with email marketing to reach customers through multiple channels.

Learn more: Holiday Marketing on Instagram: 6 Tips for Marketers

Create Limited-Time Offers

Fear of missing out is real when it comes to grab-worthy social media deals. Along with your gift guide, create exclusive deals that are only available for a limited time.

You can approach these offers in various ways:

• Create a “12 Days of Deals” type of campaign. Roll out something new on each of those 12 days. Each deal is good on that day only.
• Offer seasonal products. They’re only available during the holiday season, and after that, they’re gone (until next year).
• Word your content to inspire urgency. For example: “Buy yours before we sell out again!” and “Limited quantities available!”
• Announce your limited-time offerings in advance on Facebook and Instagram as well as via email campaigns.
• Create contests with deadlines that encourage user-generated content and also expose your brand to new users via tagging and sharing.
• Include a link in your bio to your website.
• Use ads to roll out and publicize your limited-time offers.

The goal with this “scarcity factor” type of holiday marketing is not to generate hysteria — we’re not trying to encourage people to run out and hoard toilet paper and cleaning products. Rather, it’s to generate buzz and positive energy around your brand. It’s also the call to action you need to meet holiday sales goals.

Activate Your Employees and Influencers

Even if it’s a complete stranger, people tend to trust the recommendations of a third party. There’s just something so convincing about a real person describing why they love a product or service — versus the brand itself tooting its own horn.

That’s true whether it’s a micro-influencer or an employee. In recent years, partnering with these types of influencers has proved to be an effective strategy. 

For your holiday marketing, it can help you spread your message to a wider audience. Moreover, it can save you valuable time and resources that you won’t have to spend promoting yourself.

Consider the following statistics from the Digital Marketing Institute:

• 70% of teens trust influencers over celebrities
• 86% of women turn to social media for purchasing advice
• Nearly half of consumers rely on influencers for purchasing recommendations
• Influencer marketing is the fastest-growing method of online customer acquisition

Our Rallio Activate product is designed to help brands activate these influencers and employees on social media. Our technology streamlines the process so these influencers can easily spread the word about your brand. You can also share their posts to make the most of influencer content.

Don’t Delay With Your Holiday Marketing

With consumers already breaking out their shopping lists, don’t waste any time getting your holiday marketing plans in order. Rallio is here to help you make the most of your marketing efforts so you can head into 2021 feeling confident, accomplished and ready for a new year.

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When most businesses are getting started, they might handle their social media themselves. Or they might simply put off using social media as a marketing medium. The idea of having a full-blown social media team might be a distant thought. 

At this point, they just want to launch and make a splash. What business owners don’t always realize from the get-go, however, is that making a splash requires dedicated social media marketing efforts. 

Social media needs to be included in any kind of marketing strategy. If you put your social media marketing front and center instead of making it an afterthought, you’ll more quickly reach your intended audience. In combination with your other marketing efforts, you can build a customer base.

Rather than put off creating a social media team, make it a priority. At the very least, assume you’ll need one or two people handling your social media posting, review responses, boosting and inbox replies. 

Remember, too, that you can always outsource this function, and many business owners do so in an effort in order to dedicate their resources elsewhere. (More on that later.)

As you’re building your own social media team or looking outside your organization to outsource, there are certain functions to make sure you’ve got covered. To help you put together the best social media team for your business, we’ve compiled this guide to the 5 types of players you need on your social media team. 

There might be one or two people who manage all these different functions. Or you might have a larger social media team with singular roles. Whatever you decide upon, make sure you have the following functions covered.

Read more: Should You Outsource Your Small-Business Social Media? 4 Compelling Reasons It Makes Sense

Every Social Media Team Needs a Good Strategist 

A social media strategist, aka manager, knows your brand inside and out. They’re able to develop goals and strategies that align with your brand. 

In many cases, the strategist is tasked with: 

• Creating engaging, local content
• Communicating and building relationships among various departments
• Analyzing data to make strategy recommendations
• Boosting ads and determining how to allocate an ad budget
• Handling customer questions and support requests
• Responding to online reviews and mitigating the impact of any negative reviews
• Engaging with a page’s followers 

If you can only have one person on your social media team, this is the person you need. As you can see, it’s a long list of responsibilities that are not best handled by the owner of a business, who already has plenty to do.

If you decide to distribute the functions above among a social media team, you can break down the roles even further. Read on.

The Content Creator

The content creator is the person who brings your page to life. They’re the ones dreaming up what to post, creating a piece of content and publishing it. 

Whether it’s a photo or a video, they make sure a post is engaging, never boring, and always going the extra mile in terms of the number of eyeballs seeing your content.

The content creator knows the latest trends in social media and pop culture. They’re able to skillfully translate these trends into meaningful posts that resonate with your audience. 

In a nutshell, the content creator is a major asset to your social media team. You can’t do social media without them. Without great content, your page won’t be able to attract and keep its followers.

The Community Manager

A close cousin of the strategist is the community manager. This is the person monitoring, listening to and responding to social engagements — creating a personal connection between the brand and the audience.

The community manager role is crucial to building the community and establishing the brand’s reputation. 

You can’t simply drop content and run, hoping for the best. You’ve got to interact with the community you’re trying to build as they start engaging with your content. 

If you’re doing the work to produce local content and boost it, you have to expect there will be a greater need for a community manager. Not only are they replying to comments and questions, but they’re also responsible for any customer support issues and review responses. 

Your community manager needs to be friendly, proactive, engaging and patient. They should be comfortable with being a liaison between customers and business owners, or tech support or other functions when needed.

The community manager is responsible for your brand loyalty. And that loyalty is everything as far as retention and lead conversion.

The Data Analyst

Working together with the content creator, the data analyst helps to inform the content strategy. 

As the content creator produces content, the data analyst works behind the scenes to gain audience insights. Essentially, they’re examining the who, what, when, where, why and how of the ways in which the audience interacts with content.

The data analyst can then turn this information into actionable insights, for both the social media channel and the content strategy. They can advise on whether a strategy is on track or if some tweaks are needed. 

Read more: 3 Critical Questions to Ask Before Slashing Your Marketing Budget

The Paid Media Specialist

A successful page needs both organic and paid strategies in order to boost brand awareness, gain new followers and attract new leads. Working closely with the data analyst, your paid media specialist creates paid media plans to optimize performance.

While your content creator and community manager are focused on content and community engagement, the paid media specialist is optimizing their organic efforts.

For example, let’s say you have a piece of content that performs well in terms of likes, clicks, comments and shares. The paid media specialist can boost that content for greater reach. With a paid strategy, the organic content gets more mileage.

The paid media specialist also understands how each platform works, what types of content do best, and what budget to set for ads in order to reach different goals.

Additional Tips on Building a Social Media Team

As mentioned above, the social media team may consist of just one or two people performing a hybrid of the roles above. This can be a smart way to optimize resources and avoid employee burnout.

In addition, having the proper technologies in place can help to streamline your processes. The Rallio Dashboard is designed to make the social media team’s lives easier, promote efficiency, and allow for greater organization, insights and tracking.

Now for the shameless plug. Rallio not only has the technology, but also the social media team that you need. Rather than build your own social media team from scratch — and assume the responsibility of managing that team — you can outsource all of the responsibilities above to us.

In short, we provide both the social media team and the technology. You’ll have fewer hats to wear as a business owner. 

And you’ll finally have the time you need to build your business.

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If 2020 has taught us anything as social media marketers, it’s adaptability. The plans you had for your 2020 marketing may have had to be adjusted, put on hold or scrapped altogether. Now, as you create a 2021 marketing strategy, you might be wondering how to approach an uncertain future.

Rather than get overwhelmed at the thought of creating a 2021 marketing plan, look to the lessons learned from 2020. The consumer behaviors we’re seeing today on social media provide a good idea of what to expect in 2021 and post-COVID, whenever that day comes.

By looking closely at how consumers are engaging on social media, you can predict how they’ll behave in the coming year. And while we always recommend doing your own research related to your particular industry, the following predictions should serve as a good starting point. Using these predictions, you can begin formulating a 2021 marketing strategy and prepare for whatever lies ahead.

Another caveat: These predictions are always subject to change based on unforeseen circumstances. Keep an eye on the trends as we move into the final days of the election, the colder days of winter and flu season coinciding with COVID, and any local weather events that could impact buying. 

Consumers Are Planning for Better Days Ahead

The panic buying of toilet paper, groceries, hand sanitizer and other essentials we saw early in the pandemic have subsided to a degree. Although we’re still seeing lines to get into some grocery stores and some shelves emptier than others, we’re also seeing the sentiments shift on social media.

People who had to postpone their weddings, travel plans and other events are now thinking beyond the pandemic. Rather than stock up on endless supplies of paper goods, they’re thinking of ways to spend their money on fun.

They’re enjoying staycations and eyeing vacation home rentals and camping excursions to fill their calendars. With time on their hands and a desire to connect with nature, families are hitting the road.

Forbes adds, “An oversupply of oil is slashing gas prices and enticing more travelers to hit the road. Many people, especially families, are also looking toward nature, and some private and public campgrounds have seen an increase in visitors over the past few months.”

2021 marketing strategy: Adjust your messaging to address how you’re helping people make the most of pandemic times or look forward to happier days ahead. Do you own a tire shop? Tell customers you’re ready to help them get on the road. Flower shop? Show customers your beautiful wedding bouquets. Use language that inspires positivity and makes your followers feel optimistic for the future.

Recommended resource: Rallio Local for custom, local content with spot-on messaging

Contactless Is Here to Stay

We’ll continue to see a rise in contact-free options for making reservations, ordering food, checking in, shopping for goods and services, and earning loyalty rewards. By eliminating common touchpoints, businesses are providing a clean, safe, convenient way to carry out tasks that previously required much more hands-on interaction. 

The cost of implementing these new technologies is an upfront expense that may prove to be a burden for some businesses. However, this is a necessary expenditure if you want to survive and thrive in 2021. Consumers now expect there to be contact-free and ecommerce options if they’re going to give you their business.

2021 marketing strategy: Implement touch-free and ecommerce options if you haven’t already. Share what you’re doing on social media to let your followers know how to take advantage of these technologies. 

Recommended resource: The Free Website Guys for a beautifully designed, ecommerce-enabled website built for you totally free — yes, free. No credit card required.

No Moment Is Too Small

While people were watching the moments tick by at home, they also started to make those moments count. From breaking out Halloween decorations early to supporting local bakeries on National Dessert Day, consumers are looking for reasons to celebrate.

2021 marketing strategy: Step up your marketing around everyday celebrations to help your followers find some joy at home. Additionally, dedicate extra planning for the traditional holidays that are coming. People will likely be shopping online in record numbers this holiday season and starting their gift-buying research early. 

NetImperative notes, “July (along with August and September) has one of the highest rates of UGC interaction, highlighting that shoppers are engaging with customer reviews, photos, and questions and answers as they research gifts online.”

Recommended resource: Facebook IQ holiday marketing guide

Read more: Planning for a Christmas like no other

Customer Service Is Paramount

Social media is not only a social platform, but also a customer service channel. People are routinely turning to a brand’s social media pages to air concerns, ask questions and learn more about the business.

2021 marketing strategy: Respond to every review, comment, inbox message and other social interaction. Treat social media as an extension of your customer support team.

Recommended resource: Rallio Local for responding to all of the above on your behalf, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.

Read more: Brand Voice: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?

Doing Good Translates to Good Business

More than ever, customers are interested in seeing brands participate in initiatives that serve the greater good. From advocating for social justice to providing resources during the pandemic, businesses have stepped in and stepped up — and consumers are taking notice. 

As Inc.com puts it, “Nine in 10 Americans expect companies to do more than make a profit. Is your company taking action to build a more just, sustainable, and prosperous world?”

If you’re shying away from heart-centric endeavors, just remember that your followers may feel differently. Deloitte reports: “Executives also told us they’re prioritizing improving efficiency and productivity over more human-centric initiatives such as strengthening customer engagement and increasing the company’s impact on society. But when we polled consumers, they told us that these are precisely the types of actions they expect from brands. More than a quarter of consumers said they walked away from companies they perceived to be acting self-interestedly.

2021 marketing strategy: Consider ways you can be a force for good in the coming year. Define how your marketing can communicate your desire to be of service and help others.

Recommended resource: Deloitte’s 2021 Global Marketing Trends

Learn more: Digital Marketing Institute: 16 Brands Doing Corporate Social Responsibility Successfully

Stay Flexible With 2021 Marketing Plans

The past year reminds us that being ready to change on a dime is critical to surviving as a small business. Keep an eye on your own customer base, their likes and dislikes on social media, and their needs and wants going into 2021. Be ready to change course if you’re thrown another curveball.

Oh, and stay positive. Be prepared, but don’t panic. And that, perhaps, is the best advice of all as we round out this strange, chaotic year.

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If you’re thinking of slashing your marketing budget right now, you’re not alone. Faced with the pandemic and economic uncertainties, many business owners are looking for ways to trim their expenses.

While there may be certain cost-cutting measures you can take, however, your marketing budget should not be one of them. With internet and social media usage at an all-time high, you have an opportunity to reach customers who otherwise would never find you. 

“During a March 2020 survey of social media users in the United States, 43.1 percent of respondents stated that if confined to their homes during the coronavirus, they would use Instagram more during that period. YouTube and Facebook were also popular social platforms that users were estimating to increase their usage during physical distancing at home.” — Statista

Although the pandemic has brought about challenging times for businesses and consumers alike, now is not the time to reduce marketing spending. In fact, ramping up your marketing budget could be the thing that pushes you ahead of your competition.

According to Harvard Business Review (HBR): “Companies that have bounced back most strongly from previous recessions usually did not cut their marketing spend, and in many cases actually increased it. But they did change what they were spending their marketing budget on and when to reflect the new context in which they operated.”

So rather than cut your marketing budget, ask yourself these three critical questions. You might find that it’s simply a matter of reallocating your marketing dollars in new and better ways.

Read more: The 6 Most Important Social Media Metrics to Track for ROI

Have You Pivoted?

By pivoting, we mean changing course when faced with these types of unprecedented times. (Apologies if you’ve heard that phrase a zillion times by now — it’s just the most accurate description for what we’re all going through.)

Throwing your marketing dollars at the same things you were marketing heavily a year ago just doesn’t make sense. Instead, consider how your business can shift to address the current reality.

By now, many businesses have already figured out how to pivot. There have been entirely new lines of business created, out of necessity. Fitness studios, forced to close their doors due to COVID-19, had to launch virtual classes. Restaurants had to create takeout and delivery options. Retailers had to create ecommerce offerings in place of in-person shopping.

Many of these new additions to businesses are here to stay. And yet … can you do more?

Now is not the time to get comfortable. Keep the things that are working, but keep discovering ways to be better than your competitors, too. 

As HBR puts it: “Research … shows that products launched during a recession have both higher long-term survival chances and higher sales revenues. That’s partly because there are fewer new products to compete with, but it also comes from the fact that companies maintaining R&D have focused the investment on their best prospects — which may explain why products introduced during recessions have been shown to be of higher quality.”

“A new and innovative product engenders hope that the economy is on the mend, and that the consumer may soon be able to afford it,” HBR adds.

It’s not enough to launch new products and services — how are you going to spread the word?

It’s essential that you pair your launches with strategic marketing plans for the greatest impact with your target audience. 

Read more: Lessons Learned From the Pandemic: A Conversation With Franchisees

Are You Satisfied With Your Share of Voice?

Share of voice (SOV) is a metric that describes your share of advertising compared to your competitors. It also includes all forms of measurable brand awareness, such as the number and reach of online mentions, pay per click, website traffic and other factors, says Search Engine Journal (SEJ).

“Basically, share of voice helps you understand how popular your brand is compared to all your competitors,” adds SEJ.

Calculating your SOV requires a detailed explanation that goes beyond the subject matter of this article. The SEJ article referenced above offers a nice breakdown you can use to determine your own SOV. (Feeling acronymed out yet?)

However, the key takeaway is that increasing your advertising is a smart move right now while your competitors are cutting back. Think about it: As they decrease, and you increase, you gain more SOV.

“During recessions, when most firms are cutting back on their brand advertising, a firm’s share of voice increases if it can maintain or increase its advertising budget,” says HBR, citing Reckitt Benckiser, whose family of brands includes Clearasil, Durex, Woolite and, notably during the pandemic, Lysol. 

“In the recession following the 2008 financial crash, the company launched a marketing campaign aimed at persuading its consumers to continue purchasing its more expensive and better performing brands, despite the harsh economic climate,” explains HBR. “Increasing its advertising outlays by 25% in the face of reduced marketing by competitors, Reckitt Benckiser actually grew revenues by 8% and profits by 14%, when most of its rivals were reporting profit declines of 10% or more. They viewed advertising as an investment rather than an expense.”

In today’s climate, gaining SOV means ramping up your marketing budget and advertising via social media and other digital mediums. Your followers need to hear from you, or they’ll forget about you and go elsewhere. 

And even established brands need to work to stay relevant. Just look at big names like Coca Cola in 2020, reminding its customers that the brand “always has been, and always will be there for you, in good times and bad,” notes HBR. (Learn more in this YouTube segment.)

Your followers also need to see that you’re responsive to social media questions, comments, online reviews and other digital engagements. All of these small interactions add up to a greater SOV than the competitor with no social presence, unanswered comments and questions, and sometimes even reviews that haven’t received a response.

In summary, increasing your marketing budget has the potential to give you:

• Not just greater SOV, but also greater market share as a result of increased connections with customers and new prospects. Your social media ad campaigns, boosted posts and related email offers all help you reach your target audience.
• Retention of your core customer base. Staying top of mind means they think of you when they need your products or services. Out of sight means out of mind.
• New customers. How are you going to keep a constantly growing pipeline if you aren’t marketing and advertising yourself?
• A positive online reputation. Having someone dedicated to responding to every single social interaction and review is essential for cultivating credibility and trust with your target audience.

Can You Better Allocate Your Marketing Budget?

So if you aren’t going to cut your marketing budget, it makes sense to look at where you are spending your marketing dollars.

If you take a good look at where you are spending your marketing budget, you might find that you need to make some tweaks. If you’re spending money on pay per click but spending nothing on social media, for instance, you’re missing out on opportunities to reach your customer.

Learn more: 5 Ways to Integrate Email Marketing With Social Media Marketing

What kind of tweaks can you make? 

• Allocate money toward social media. Our research and firsthand experience with clients have demonstrated the value of social media marketing and advertising. Time and time again, we’ve seen that even a modest social media ad budget allows brands to extend their reach and expand their following.
• Ensure your digital platforms are an extension of in-person experiences. Your social media messaging, design, visuals and even the people pictured in your local photos should reflect what you have in-store. Own a restaurant? They should see James, your head chef, and Sally, your hostess with the mostest.
• Provide a seamless shopping experience by aligning your social media with the rest of your marketing. For example, a shopper who shops in your physical store should be able to hop on your social media pages and have a similar experience. A shopper who receives marketing offers via email but isn’t targeted and retargeted via social media is a lost opportunity. 
• Consider whether outsourcing would help you achieve more of your marketing goals with less money. The cost of hiring someone to manage the full-time job of social media marketing is often greater than the cost of outsourcing to an agency and technology partner like Rallio.

Your Business Deserves a Smart Marketing Budget

We understand the current economic climate might make some businesses nervous about spending money on marketing. However, without a dedicated and properly allocated marketing budget, your business will have a tough time getting ahead.

Keep in mind that Rallio offers a variety of different products and services to help with your marketing goals. We’ll make things work for your particular marketing budget — so you can feel good about spending the money. Schedule a no-obligation consultation to find out how we can help.

https://staging.rallio.com///get-started/

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