What Economic Downturn Means for the Marketing Sector

In the current economic landscape, businesses are struggling to gain a foothold and reach consumers in the traditional ways. Where once a brand's relevance was determined by its presence in major business communities and on the high street, it's now possible for almost anyone to offer a product or service online and see success over major providers that have been in operation for decades. As consumers are now interacting with products and services in digital environments more than they ever have before, social media marketing is now becoming a key aspect of business growth and brand awareness.

Economic downturns are driving change

In 2023, there has been a lot of talk about a cost of living crisis manifesting in many countries, talks of recession, and even concerns voiced about the applications and implications of AI on the modern workforce. With the latter in mind, tools including photo and video editing software (like speech to text) are having a significant, positive impact and are supporting many businesses in terms of maximizing reach and promoting scalability, but the increasing use of automated robots and even software is revolutionizing certain sectors and pressures are already being felt. These factors are leading financial markets towards economic downturns and this is driving change in the way businesses are approaching their marketing efforts

The rise of social media marketing

When it comes to promoting businesses, products, and services, marketing is an in-depth and varied process that can be incredibly time and cost intensive to execute properly. In recent years, commerce has been impacted by factors such as Covid-19and the Ukraine war, and the digital environment has been a saving grace for a large number of businesses and also consumers everywhere. While there have been some teething issues across sectors, social media marketing is one facet that has really shown some significant potential - and when you consider that these platforms recently overtook paid searches as some of the leading advertising channels, it's clear to see how it is becoming increasingly more attractive. In fact, this year, businesses not utilizing its capabilities are more than likely to fall behind competitors that do.

Why use social media marketing to boost business?

Right now, there are 4.9 billion social media users globally, and while this may seem like a significant number, studies and current industry growth suggests that it will reach around 5.8 billion in just four years time. With the average user dividing their time between multiple platforms every month, there is potential to be seen in not only targeted channel marketing, but also in diversified marketing efforts that translate across portals.

With boosting business in mind, social media marketing can:

● Establish new brands and shape existing ones to meet the needs of modern audiences

● Create a strong visual brand identity that will appeal to diverse markets (curating cohesive imagery using an online photo editor like the one on offer from CapCut can be a game-changer)

● Better target audiences with in-built and third-party scheduling capabilities

● Provide a wide and more varied scope for content distribution

● Promote an entirely new approach to customer services

● Give businesses access to advanced analytics that can provide in-depth insights into business inputs, outputs, and KPIs, as well as measurable brand sentiment

● Allow for greater potential for click-throughs and return on investment (ROI)

The top platforms for businesses to advertise on are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube - and each of these can benefit from a tailored approach to marketing from impactful imagery to highly engaging videos.

How to create the right social media marketing campaign

The first thing you'll need to do to create a well-developed and highly-functioning social media marketing campaign that converts is think about each social media platform you are aiming to advertise on. It will be important to create a tailored mission statement for each. From here, set some goals under the SMART marketing ethos (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound), track meaningful metrics, conduct some significant research on your target audience, conduct competitive analysis, undertake a social media audit, do some work to improve existing profiles, and finally, find inspiration and begin curating the right marketing content that aligns with the results.

An important thing to keep in mind is that if you are using multiple social media channels for your marketing campaigns, you will need to determine the right content mix. This means that you will need to define what percentage of content will drive traffic back to your website, what percentage will best support lead generation goals, the percentage that will draw from content on other sources, and what percentage will be focused on your company culture.

If you are aiming to improve the health of your business in the current economic climate, social media marketing will undoubtedly be the strongest tool in your arsenal to help boost your efforts, promote scalability, and ensure continued success.