COVID-19 has contaminated almost the entire human establishment leaving some minor areas with minimum damages. The damages are not only on physical health but the virus has also affected our cognitive side. People are forced to stay indoors and quarantined where instead of our regular socialization which gradually became one of our preliminary needs. Like we cannot think of leaving without food, water, shelter, and clothing on daily basis, socialization was part of our regular activities. COVID-19 with its double hit restricted our social needs and forced us to stay quarantined for months. Researchers have predicted such mental fatigue which we might encounter during this quarantine period and also recommended a host of remedies to overcome them. Many of the remedies recommended investing more time in productive works like reading, writing, and developing personal skills. This will not only divert our attention towards productive activities but also keep it rooted so that we do not get frustrated or hopped around aimlessly around the corners to imbibe negative energies.
The advertising industry is also facing challenges to sustain. COVID-19 forced many organizations to reduce their budget on marketing and promotion including a major cut on the advertising expenditure. The reason behind such drastic changes is the production and operations of many industries were forced to be restricted on multiple levels, leading to a reduced budgeting for running fixed and variable expenses. While the advertisement has always been a great strength and part of promotional strategies, an organization that has online presence is bound to promote their brands on the social media platforms, making social media advertisements an integral part of the promotional strategies. Increasing interest and involvement on social media unlocked the doors to reach out to a large number of people at from different parts of the world. Similarly, the Return on Investment (ROI) is also being calculated based on the performance of social media advertisements to keep a track of the digital campaign. There are multiple advantages to promote the content of social media like for example, Facebook has the following prominent benefits:
- Facebook is a free social media platform to subscribe and use (though some services require investments).
- One an account is activated and promotion starts, it gets the opportunity to be discovered by the other users who are searching for similar products or services.
- Facebook provides a friendly environment that helps users to easily be in touch with each other and also maintain a healthy relationship among them.
- Facebook provides the option of creating communities to facilitate the brands to share their information.
- The platform often comes handy when generating leads for their business.
- Facebook makes personalizes communication easier for the users to design and serve it to the targeted one.
- Through Facebook, the process of feedback to answer the complaints and grievances becomes faster and more effective.
- Facebook allows us to share multiple types of content in innovative forms to attract consumers.
The following benefits can also be utilized through a Facebook page:
- A Facebook page allows multiple interactive activities like following, sharing, liking, inviting friends to drive the traffic towards the page to increase its reach.
- Email address, website link, postal address with the location map can be added to a page for better navigation. On a business page, the opening and closing hour details can also be added for physical store locations to help out the consumers.
- A Facebook page can also host job postings to attract suitable candidates for their organization.
- While managing all the activities of a page can be challenging for one person, Facebook allows to disseminate the responsibilities among people with multiple altitudes like “Admin”, “Editor”, “Moderator”, “Advertisers” and “Analyst”.
- All the Facebook pages are by default accessible to all the uses, making it easily searchable.
- A Facebook page allows us to put details of the product or services to make the search easier and narrower.
- The privacy features in Facebook make the information shared on the platform secure while ensuring the free flow of information to the target sections.
- The algorithm helps the users to easily mage and controls their pages.
The usage of a Facebook page varies for different purposes and can broadly be categorized into the following categories:
- Local business or place
- Company, organization or institution
- Brand or product
- Artist, band or public figure
- Entertainment
- Cause or community
Investing in social media advertising might be a clever option especially during this global pandemic when most of the traditional mediums are going low with the advertisement expenditure. While the cost of promotion on social media platforms is relatively lower and flexible, the platform allows even small and micro-scale entrepreneurs to publicize their products and services. There are tracking mechanisms to trace the reach and impact of the advertisements on social media to evaluate the performances which is a difficult task for outdoor advertisements.
Career Opportunities
While social media possess extreme benefits for businesses to promote their products and services online, an expert with such knowledge become high demandable to the organizations who are looking for ways to improve their business using social media promotion. These businesses often offer the jobs roles like social media managers or strategies for the desirable candidates to utilize their talents to bulk up their business volumes.
