Anti-Social Media

With over 3 billion users currently on social media platforms, the connectivity and community they provide are second to none. Since 2004, platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter have made sharing content with your audience easier than ever. With the click of a button, your chosen circle is able to participate in your shared moments. While this may have rung true a decade ago, social media today is far different than it was at inception. Today, the most popular social media platforms are overrun by complex algorithms, intrusive marketing, trolls, and more.

Gone are the days of a chronological home feed of posts from your followers. Ever-changing algorithms have done away with this feature, placing a greater emphasis on likes, comments, and shares to curate your home page. For a business, these slight changes can have major implications. On average, the current engagement rate across the top three social media platforms is less than 1% for businesses. While this number may vary depending on audience size, social media has revived the very problem it was created to solve.

In the last decade, we have seen social media turn from a democracy of connectivity to a dictatorship of advertising dollars. Studies have shown that social media organic reach continues to drop every year. If a business is trying to communicate a time-sensitive deal or an urgent message with their customer base, social media would not be the best place to turn. A direct line of communication would be necessary to receive the turnout they need. While social media has dropped the ball, other channels of communication have proven to fill in these gaps.

The SMS Advantage

Long thought of as the channel for our most intimate relationships, text messaging has recently entered the spotlight for direct-to-consumer marketing. Just a quick glance at our favorite brands’ websites or social media profiles can show a strategically placed phone number for communication. As our social media feeds continue to be overrun with advertising dollars, studies have shown that consumers now prefer to communicate with brands over text, more than ever. While brands being invited into the most direct and personal line of communication may have been taboo years ago, today it is the last feed we truly have control over.

Unlike social media marketing, SMS marketing is a heavily regulated space by TCPA and other laws protecting both the brand and the consumer. Opt-in clauses not only provide legal protection but can also be an indicator to measure intent for brands. Only your most loyal and faithful customers would choose for a brand to be a part of their inner communication circle. SMS marketing is not just a fad, but a way for businesses to take back control of their audience. A true direct line of communication with your top customers, no middleman.

For early SMS marketing adopters, the initial results have been overwhelming. Studies have shown that SMS marketing messages from brands convert with a 98% open rate and a 45% click-through rate. The e-commerce industry, especially, has shown great strides in successfully implementing and converting with text as a part of its marketing stack. Businesses would be hard-pressed to find a marketing channel that converts better. SMS marketing platforms, like SuperPhone, have added features to take a text to the next level. From advanced analytics and integrations to custom data capture forms and automated responses, the text is the communication channel for businesses wanting to take back control of their audience.

The Funnel

As SMS marketing continues to show outstanding numbers when compared to other communication channels, it shines when combined with an existing social media strategy. Using Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter as the top of your funnel allows these platforms to focus on what they do best, promote. Creating great content to leverage their large audiences is understood, but where businesses drop the ball is after they have generated interest. Simply relying on driving potential customers to your website has been proven to be a futile tactic. Communication over text is where businesses can bridge the gap.

Use cases have shown the best implementation of SMS marketing and social media is when great content is combined with a call to action for text. An image, video, or story post with a call to action can boost your engagement rate and subscriber list growth. Adding a promotional discount to this strategy can significantly boost these numbers while pushing leads and loyal customers down the funnel. The advantage text platforms like SuperPhone provide is allowing businesses to collect data at every step of the funnel and automate responses, to scale intent over the most direct channel of communication. If time is money, then SMS marketing allows your money to be well spent by saving time.

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