In modern times, there are many ways to go about promotion your brand and products to either loyal customers, or new customers. With the boom of technology, shortly after came social media. There are always new forms of social media. However, the most popular cites include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok, and beyond. I believe that companies should not refrain from promoting their brand via social media.
There are many ways in which companies can promote themselves on social media. Two ways include but are not limited to target marketing, or using an influencer to promote their brand. Between all the different apps of social media, there is a broad range of demographics these platforms cover – people of all ages, from all areas, many nationalities, shopping for all different types of things, etc. Generally speaking, many users of these platforms visit the apps daily for different periods of time. This allows a companies to easily promote their brand. Many of these ads on these platforms have a picture with a caption and a call to action, many times they are promoting new products or deals, or even building brand awareness.
Social media can be used for businesses big or small, old or new. Companies often look at what the competition is doing; so, a small company is going to be working off of another small companies tactics on social media. This raises the question of should popular brands refrain from brand promotion tactics on social media in regards to authenticity? My answer is no.
There are times when ads for questionable companies are seen, however, if that occurs they are often skipped over, consumers won’t look much into them. This is comparable to email marketing, if the consumer is not interested, they don’t look at the email. For popular companies that consumers are familiar with, their content is going to be more looking into, especially if the ad is targeted to a certain group of consumers. In addition, if the company uses and influencer to promote themselves, they are ore likely to gain consumers because they are using people with a lot of followers, making the brand seem authentic. It is not entirely possible to be authentic on social media, however. Usually on content posted by companies, there is some form of negative comment, or reaction, which other consumers can look at and gain insight about the company.
Here is a link to the Starbucks Facebook page where these patterns are visible- https://www.facebook.com/Starbucks.
In conclusion, brand promotion via social media is on the up and up. Although there are some questionable aspects relating to authenticity, social media usage is a good way to reach all current or new customers. It also provides a good source of customer service.