The communication and media industry has been evolving in Kenya and in the world over. From the use of smoke signals to drums and messengers, from the use of post offices to landlines, from the use of radios to televisions (still used), and now to social media.
The coming of social media has greatly led to a revolution in the communication sector especially in the advertisement industry. Initially, the main modes of advertisements that brands used to channel out messages to their existing and potential customers and clients included radios, newspapers, and television or simply print and electronic media channels.
As the world continues to become a global village, however, thanks to the evolution of the internet, brands are increasingly embracing the use of social media in the marketing of their services and products. The most commonly used social media platforms include Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram through other social media platforms are also being used such as LinkedIn.
The mainstream media, which used to dominate the advertisement world is slowly losing to the new entrant, social media. Even in terms of news consumption, people are widely moving away from the mainstream media. In fact, in most cases, people are getting information on social media platforms and only confirm the authenticity with the mainstream media.
There are various reasons why you should consider advertising using social media platforms as compared to the mainstream media:
i) Social media is affordable. Social media is relatively cheap as an advertisement channel than mainstream media. In some cases, it is absolutely free to make your product known via social media provided one has a team with a sizeable number of social media accounts. Most brands are using social media influencers. These are people with social media accounts with a huge following or who specialize in passing across messages based on a wide range of topics.
ii) Social media has a higher impact in terms of rich as compared to the use of mainstream media. Statistics show that almost 90 percent of people, the majority of them young people, now own internet-enabled mobile phones. Putting an advert on a newspaper and drumming the same via social media platforms, one on social media will yield more results than that on a newspaper.
iii) Social media has a reference value. One can always go back and refer to past posts and be able to see how the campaign or advertisements were done. The mainstream media, especially radio and television, lack this reference value. Once the information is given via radio, it is gone and it waits for no man.
Another advantage of using social media is one is able to monitor the effect, the reach, and the impact, especially for Facebook and Twitter.
