As we all know, social media has taken over the world. I doubt there is one person in this class who doesn’t have an account on either Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, or LinkedIn. With 59.4% of the total world population actively using social media, it has become one of the most efficient ways to send a message to the public (Kepios, 2023). So how did it come to be this way?
Truly getting its start in the 2000s with the rise of MySpace, social media has continuously innovated across multiple platforms to allow communities to connect. Though it may have initially been intended for personal connections to be made, today we see it implemented as a professional tool for business. Technology has rooted itself so deeply into our society, whether that be through mobile phones, Zoom meetings, or even self-driving cars, so it stands to reason that marketing techniques would evolve as well.
With the focus of today’s consumers moving towards the digital, brands have begun to capitalize on this as a powerful marketing tool. Additionally, using the internet is an extremely effective way to reach multiple countries as it is instantaneous and cheap (however, it should be noted that some countries have very limited access to the internet and therefore not all communities can be reached this way).
Global social media marketing can be defined as “an approach used to create, develop, and integrate concepts on marketing that can change the way individuals and groups of people behave” (Wamicha, 2020). It allows companies to widen their audience in order to become a true global business.
There are many ways one might use social media to achieve their brand’s marketing goals. The most popular social media platforms by advertising reach are as follows: Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat, TikTok, Douyin, Telegram, Snapchat, Kuaishou, Sina Weibo, QQ, Twitter, Pinterest (Datareportal, 2023).
Whether it be through images, videos, UGC (user-generated content), micro/macro influencers, written text, etc., there is no limit to the amount of content that can be pushed through these channels. With such a vast amount of opportunity, marketing messages can be created specially for a company’s target market. Additionally, many brands will create sub-channels for their presence in different countries in order to adapt their message for a different culture (ex. @netflixuk for the UK & Ireland vs @netflixkr for Korea).
Overall, the idea of marketing has broadened to reflect the digital age we are in today. Social media is simply a new way of reaching one’s audience, with the added benefit of a greater reach than traditional methods. The most successful firms we see today cultivate their social media presence and create whole departments to stay on-trend.
If there are any takeaways from this article, let it be this: invest in your company’s social media, it truly will pay off.
Resources:
https://datareportal.com/social-media-users
https://study.com/academy/lesson/global-social-marketing-strategies.html
https://wp.nyu.edu/dispatch/2019/05/07/social-media-marketing-the-leading-global-modern-marketing-strategy/