Facebook and Twitter are two of the most popular social media platforms available – and yet, the efforts of companies to promote their product on either platform may just be wasting their time and money, according to a new report by market research firm Forrester Research. At the same time that social media advertising is on the decline, text message marketing efforts are on the rise.
So if you’re a marketer trying to decide where to allocate your budget for consumer engagement, read between the lines – or just more of this blog post – in order to understand what it is, exactly, about social media that doesn’t work, and what it is about text messaging, that does.
The decline of Facebook and Twitter
The Forrester report, titled “Social Relationship Strategies That Work,” explains that on Twitter and Facebook, posts from top brands reach only 2 percent of their followers. And the percentage of people who engage with those posts? An even smaller number: .07 percent of users. That small number includes targeted advertising and promoted content – in other words, the kind of content that brands think will engage people over social media.
“It’s clear that Facebook and Twitter don’t offer the relationships that marketing leaders crave,” says Nate Elliott, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. His suggestion? Stop making Facebook the center of your relationship marketing efforts.
Text messaging picks up the ball where social media drops it
While social media advertising wanes, mobile marketing is stronger than ever. A 2015 Global Data-Driven Survey reported that the future of marketing is “all about getting personal”, which means that marketers should start trying to connect to consumers on the most intimate channel there is – text messaging. Text messaging, with its 100% delivery rate, instantaneous reach, and ability to segment and target users, is the perfect tool for marketers who are looking to take their company or product to the top.
90% of marketers say that individualized marketing (such as SMS campaigns) is a priority for them. Even beyond segmentation, they want to create one-to-one personalization in real time. The reason marketers prefer text messaging is because it is faster and more accurate than other channels. Text messages are delivered right to a person’s phone, speaking to them in the moment and connecting with them where they’re at.
Indeed, the psychology behind marketers wanting a more direct connection with consumers is easy to understand: in a world that is increasingly packed with information, people don’t have the time or inclination to scroll through ads that may or may not apply to them. They want to feel personally addressed and not just another face in the crowd, along with everyone else that your company is trying to reach.
Text messaging is the best platform to create value
This is not to say that brands should stop using social media altogether. Twitter and Facebook are great places to build a brand identity, but social media is simply not where engagement happens. Text message marketing is where real relationships are built – and where the real value is.
The value of a “like” on Facebook is not the same as the value of somebody responding “yes” through the intimate, one-to-one channel that text messaging provides. A person who retweets a Twitter message does not have the same impact as a person who texts in a friend’s phone number as a personal recommendation for joining your mobile list. To put it simply, text messaging offers a one-to-one connection that cannot be beat – and that is where its real marketing power lies.
To learn more about how to use text messaging to effectively reach and engage your consumers, please contact us.