Social Media is nothing new. In fact, some of the earliest sites such as bolt.com, LunarStorm, and sixdegrees.com were founded nearly 30 years ago.

In the early days, however, these sites were used by peers to create and share content to share amongst themselves and engage, well, socially. Sharing events, recipes, thoughts, and achievements, came to the fore and it became a popular way to communicate with a greater number of people simultaneously.

In time, visitor numbers, as well as the number of platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram et al, increased and one of the first ways to monetise social media became apparent: banner ads. Social Media Marketing was born. We still see and use banner ads these days, as they are an effective way of marketing, which in itself evolved once Google had worked out their algorithms, to target prospective clients where they spent their time online.

Fast-forward to today and every major corporation, as well as most SMEs have a social media marketing presence of some description, with upwards of $267billion spent worldwide every year on social media marketing campaigns and paid social media advertising. An entire industry has been made by social media marketing experts and content creators creating videos on YouTube, dance crazes on TikTok, and lifestyle ideals on Instagram. Whilst, for lay people, social media use is part of our everyday lives, and we are somewhat incognizant to content whilst we're doom scrolling, we are absorbing and consuming far more brand awareness than we may consciously notice.

It may be 30 years old already - older than Gen Z - but social media is only just starting to hit its stride.

Here are 10 reasons why Social Media Marketing is more important than ever for businesses:

1: Social Media Use is on the Increase

More people use social media, spend more time interacting with social media posts, and engage more actively with creators than ever before. From 2017 to today, the number of people who actively engage with social media has doubled, from 2.73billion to 5.42billion respectively.

For marketers, in its simplest terms, the number of people your social media marketing is exposed to has doubled, your reach has doubled, and the amount of work needed to reach the same number of potential clients has halved.

With a larger audience than ever before, and more people taking notice of social media marketing posts, it pays to be as active as possible.

2: Insights Improve Accuracy when Reaching Target Audience

With every social media platform offering insights and feedback for how users respond to posts, there has never been so much information at your fingertips to learn what does and doesn't convert for your target market.

Gone are the days of "throw it out there and see what works" trial-and-error. Today's marketing is lead by data: interactions, views, likes, comments, shares, all give immediate feedback for what works for your target market and what doesn't. Learn what works, learn your process, give your audience what they want.

Use insights to plan content, calls to action, hooks, reception, and so much more.

3: The Number of Social Media Connections are Growing

There are now in excess of 2.6billion monthly active users on Instagram - a gain of 250million in one year. The average user of Instagram now has 264 followers, up from 233 in 2024. This equates to an estimated total of 686.4billion individual connections.

73% of all Instagram users have in excess of 1000 followers, which means that when your content gets shared, you're exposed to a greater audience from a smaller number of followers, as the content your followers engage with will be shared to a percentage of the their own follower base.

Engage with your audience and see how quickly their friends become your friends.

4: There Are Platforms for Every Demographic

Over time, social media users have started to converge towards the platforms they feel most comfortable using. This could be the one that they joined first, but could also be the one where most of their peers congregate and they find the content most meaningful to them.

Millennials and Gen X still rank as the leading users of Facebook - which also happens to be the favourite platform of Baby Boomers - whilst Gen Z top the list of users of Instagram, TikTok and X (Twitter), closely followed by Millennials.

Ignore the exhausted wisdom of "do one platform well" and create unique content for each demographic of your users on their preferred platform.

5: Platforms are No Longer as Creatively Restrictive

Previously, Twitter was limited to 140 characters of text. This was fantastic for people who only wanted to read a snippet of information at a time, and really tested the creativity of creators by having to squeeze the maximum amount of content into the minimum of character space. However, if you wanted to read - or say - more, you were stuck.

Fast forward to today and you can put together threads, videos, motion graphics and more. YouTube allows you to post static text carousels, and shorter, punchier videos than before, whilst Instagram reels are one of the most engaging forms of content on their platform - a far cry from the origins of being a photo sharing site.

Make different types of content to share on different platforms, and gauge the reception each form of media gets.

6: You Can Schedule Posting for When Your Audience are Online

Historically, we would have to plan when our target market would be active on social media and would need to manually post our content to target them. Today, we don't have such restrictions. With planning tools from SocialBee, Hootsuite, Adobe Express, Buffer, etc., we are now able to schedule our whole month of content, the platforms we're posting on, and the times we're posting at.

Stop guessing when your audience might see your post, and start planning to make your posts unmissable.

7: It Pays to be Niche

One of the most effective ways of communicating with your target audience on social media is to target the groups they're members of. By joining and becoming an active member of their community, you're seen as a respected peer, who understands their industry's shortcomings and can offer solutions.

Using this information, you can then use your insider knowledge to tailor your social media approach by targeting their pain points, to solve their problems before they've even searched for a solution.

Find your group, solve their problems, become the person/company they call for help.

8: It's Also What You Know

To be seen as a trusted advisor is an exceptional way of engaging with your audience. Use your experience and expertise to make a name for yourself as a problem solver and font of knowledge on a particular subject and watch your engagement levels increase.

These topics could include anything from your core business functions, to new industry insights. Whatever you specialise in could be something of help to your audience, so share it! People will subscribe just to find out what else you know.

9: Create Your Own Community

Similar to points 7 & 8, creating your own community is a fantastic way to grow your user base and share your message with people who are actively engaging with you.

Your audience could be your followers on social media, subscribers to your newsletter, or even members of a private forum you host through your website. One thing is key to all these interactions: they're there to listen to you.

By focussing on your direct user-group, you can gain insights far more quickly into what your wider audience may want to hear from you, at the same time as making members and followers feel like active participants of your channel.

10: Show Unseen and Unknown Aspects of Your Business

In this day and age, we all wear many different work hats. Having so many different roles and activities to focus on can make it hard to recognise how much we do that is outside our general scope of work.

However, this could be exactly what separates you from your competitors. For example, a plumber who is Gas Safe registered is able to install a new boiler single-handedly, without the need of a gas specialist. Following a good experience of having a burst pipe repaired, or changing a tap washer, you would have full confidence in their ability to install a new heating system. Rather than being "just" a plumber, be a Gas Safe heating specialist and see how many more enquiries you get!

Adding stories about the nuances of jobs, unique experiences, and proving problem-solving abilities are great ways to increase engagement and showcase your skills.

And there we have our 10 reasons why social media marketing is more important than ever. If you've enjoyed reading this, or have otherwise found value in it, please be sure to subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates, and follow us on all the usual socials.

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