Social media: Nowadays it is impossible to imagine life in our daily lives. We spend an average of 1 to 3 hours a day on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. During that time we send each other messages, share the latest news and watch videos. But how has social media become so big? And why do we spend so much time on it? It is because we buy youtube likes and we are addicted to that.
Among other things, this also caused Facebook to grow enormously. Social media such as MySpace and Friendster have been around for some time, but because of its user-friendliness and accessibility, Facebook had 50 million active users in the first year the website was publicly accessible. Where Facebook started in 2004 as a platform where students could stay in touch with each other, it grew into a public platform with nearly two billion users at the moment.
Why do we use social media so much?
Social Media is Just Like Eating Chocolate
Yet this accessibility is not the reason that we like being online. The first reason is that people simply enjoy sharing information. When we share information via social media, this makes us happy. Our happiness from social media is caused by the release of dopamine when we share something via social media. This substance is also released when we eat chocolate. People mainly share information to support a charity or problem that they find important, to share valuable information and to maintain contact and relationships with others. When this information also reaches a large group of friends and family and we get a lot of likes or reactions in return, this feeling only gets stronger.
How Can You Use Social Media as an Entrepreneur?
As a company, it is certainly not a wasted effort to be active on social media and also to invest in social media marketing. In addition to having enormous reach, platforms such as Facebook know a great deal about its users. This allows you to target people very specifically within your campaigns based on, for example, demographic information, interests, and behavior.
1. Write content for your target group, not for your company
The demand for content marketing (content with the aim of informing the reader) has grown enormously in recent years. As an entrepreneur, you can do content marketing by giving your followers information and tips about products, information and new developments within the industry in which you operate. You can present this information in the form of a blog or a video, for example. By regularly posting and sharing this type of content through various social media channels, you can create interaction with your target audience and inform them about products before they make a purchase.
2. Post regularly and ensure interaction with your followers
But also by regularly posting content, interacting with your followers and responding to the opportunities, you can create many opportunities for your company. By posting regularly, people will see your brand more often. Research shows that people’s attitudes towards a brand are more positive when they have often been in contact with a brand or have seen it before.
3. Try to create user-generated content
As described above, people remember events better when they are shared on social media. By challenging your followers as a company to upload user-generated content (content created by users/consumers) that fits your company, you can provoke the same effect.