Social media marketing pioneers Gary Vaynerchuck and Kerwin Rae both agree that we have 3–5 years to take advantage of social media marketing before we will be pushed from the platform.
The power of social media marketing
The benefits of social media marketing are nothing new, it absolutely trumps all traditional forms of advertising. For just $100 you can put your brand in front of hundreds of thousands of users.
Kerwin Rae mentions that he has promoted several of his videos for just $100 and as a result they have received over a million views.
There is simply no better advertising platform to get your brand in front of as many people, for such a low cost.
And promoted posts aren’t the only tool in a businesses social media arsenal, you also have influencer marketing.
Did you know:
Millenials are 70% more likely to purchase a product if it has been referred to by a peer?
And,
A share is now considered to have the same impact as a word of mouth referral.
Influencer marketing is another cost effective tool that allows businesses of all sizes to put their product in front of thousands of a relevant, highly qualified target audience in an instant.
The influencer marketing industry is growing fast, in the next 5 years the influencer marketing industry is expected to become a 5–10 billion dollar industry.
At the moment brands are able to get away with offering micro-influencers free products and discounts in return for posts promoting their brands.
For businesses that pay their influencers the average costs are as follows:
“The most common pricing model among influencers — pay-per-follower. Average price for a sponsored post is usually anywhere from $5-$10 per 1000 followers. If an influencer has a good engagement rate the price could be $10 and over for 1000 followers.
For instance, if an influencer has 5000 followers, then the price would be $25–$50, 100 000 followers — $500–$1000.
If an influencer asks for a significantly smaller price, check their followers quality. Maybe they use bots to boost the followers count.” — Anna Komok
If you can compare the costs and benefits of social media marketing to a mass promotion such as using a radio station advertisement, where your paying from $200-$5000 per week to put your content in front of a much smaller audience, which is less targeted, and has more friction between the message and the desired action from the listener. it is a no brainer why social media and influencer marketing is taking over the advertising industry.
I have just highlighted all of the benefits of social media marketing, and it is most certainly the future of advertising, so you may be wondering…
If the social media marketing industry is the future how is its time running out?
We Are The Ones Running Out of Time
It’s not that the social media marketing industry is going anywhere, it’s that small businesses and personal brands are about to be shafted.
Advertising has been a costly practice for many years. It was social media’s meteoric rise that allowed anyone to advertise effectively no matter how big or small their budget.
Over time the algorithms have become more complicated and have made it difficult for brands to see the results that promoted posts once yielded (however with the right strategies it is still just as easy), yet this isn’t the problem.
The Early Adopters Have To Move Over
We may have been the ones that pioneered the social media advertising industry, but we are about to be shafted.
The reason being, the big players aren’t hear yet .
Here are a few points for you…
- At this point in time the advertising industry is a $500 billion + industry
- The majority of this is spent on traditional advertising platforms i.e. television and print
- Streaming services have surpassed pay TV
- Mobile phones is to become the preferred option for watching shows over TV
These numbers aren’t anything new, so why is it that it has taken the big players so long to start sinking more of their budget into social media advertising… who knows?
But as Gary Vaynerchuk and Kerwin Rae say, social media advertising is the most under priced advertising medium.
The big guys are starting to realise this.
Gary and Kerwin are predicting that we have 3–5 years before all of the big players bring their $500 billion + and start sinking it into social media advertising.
(Look at what happened to the cost of Google Adwords when money started pouring into it)
When they start bringing their money across, prices for advertising on social media are going to sky rocket and the average business and personal brand will no longer be able to afford to promote using social media.
My recommendation to you…
Over the next 3 years, utilize the shit out of social media marketing whilst it is a solid and affordable investment.
For more awesome content to help you and your business, subscribe below!
Next year I will be taking everything I know about digital marketing and using it to fund my travels around the world. If you want to follow my journey, please subscribe to my newly created Youtube channel, I will begin uploading weekly content revolving around becoming a digital nomad.
curtis tredway