One major social media advantage

I saw a commercial the other day that got me thinking about the differences between traditional and social media marketing tools and practices. Knowing and understanding these differences can be a huge help in identifying which media platforms are right for your business. There are numerous factors in successful marketing optimization: hitting the right demographic, up-to-date facts and data, targeting a specific market, knowing your business’s history and what media campaigns have been successful in the past, to name a few. And although these factors are common to both marketing techniques, social media platforms provide the distinct advantage of allowing you to interact with your audience in order to see what is happening right now.

The commercial started off by asking the following question: If you were standing on the corner of a congested intersection and needed to cross the street, would you be confident and willing to take a snapshot of that intersection, wait five minutes, then cross traffic with your eyes closed? I certainly wouldn’t. The point is that the most successful approach to crossing the intersection would be to assess the congestion and traffic flow immediately prior to crossing, as well as while you are in the process of crossing the street, right?

In the present

Now apply this model to a social media versus traditional marketing platform. Most traditional marketing approaches use historical facts, demographic data and previous traffic numbers in order to create their marketing strategy. While this strategy can be successful, it’s not the same as assessing the facts, demographic data and current traffic numbers in the present. Social media gives us the tools and information we need to connect with one another faster, easier and more efficiently than ever before.