Chapter 1: Clicks and Connections

Social media has changed significantly since its early days, shaping how people communicate and interact. This blog explores its evolution, impact on marketing, key metrics for measuring performance and the role of social media in modern digital strategies.

The most popular tie to when I remember social media taking off is when "Thefacebook" was founded by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard for him and his friends to sort through the different students on campus. I was not very old when this took place but the first thing I immediately thought of when I was reading about this was the movie "The Social Network" with Jessie Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield. It was very entertaining and cool to see the upcoming of Facebook and social media as a whole. As technology continued to advance, platforms like X, Instagram and TikTok emerged. I think I would consider TikTok fairly new as of 2020 and I remember when it started to become popular and how easy it was to pick up trends with because of the preexisting social media I grew up with. In the chapter it said that by the beginning of 2024, the total number of active social media users reached 5.04 billion, representing over 62% of the world's population. I think that is crazy that over half the world is on social media actively. It just goes to show how quickly it can become a central part of daily life and shopping habits.

After reading Chapter One I decided that measuring social media performance is the most crucial element for evaluating marketing efforts and is used by businesses every day to assess the impact on campaigns and revenue. At my digital marketing internship this summer I was able to learn so much about the metrics used during social media campaigns which was cool to see the number behind it but I also learned a lot of new vocabulary. Some of the most common social media metrics I learned included:

• Call to action (CTA): the part of a social media message that attempts to persuade a person to perform the desired action.
• Click-through rate (CTR): measures how many people who view a social post, ad or other piece of content click through to read more, buy or take some other action.
• Conversion rate: the ratio of your total audience to the number of people who completed the desired conversion action from social media. the equation is (visitors who make a purchase/ visitors from social media x 100)%
• Social media return on investment (ROI): a measurement of the value from social media marketing. Represented between net profit and the cost of investment: Profit / Total Investment x 100.

My internship helped me to learn that tracking these metrics helps brands understand what resonates with their audience and where adjustments are needed. By regularly monitoring these indicators, businesses can refine their strategies to achieve better results on social media.

Social media is a key component of modern digital marketing strategies. According to the Social Media Examiner's Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 93% of social media marketers said social media was essential to their businesses (Stelzner). Social Media Marketing (SMM) is the use of social media by marketers to increase brand awareness, identify key audiences, generate leads and build meaningful relationships with customers. SMM is just one piece of a business's overall integrated marketing communications plan that can help to reach a global audience and build loyalty.

It's clear that social media has come a long way from influencing how we connect and how businesses reach us. From Facebook's early days to the rise of TikTok, social media has become a vital part of everyday life and marketing. My experience at my internship showed me just how crucial it is for brands to track and adjust their strategies based on social media metrics. As social media continues to grow, its role in digital marketing only becomes more important, offering unique ways for brands to engage with people like us and build lasting connections.

References

Edify app by Stukent. (n.d.). https://edifyapp.stukent.com/EFY-ESMM/CC-D950D4

Stelzner, Michael. "2002 Social Media Industry Report." Social Media Examiner | Social Media Marketing, 1 June 2022, https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-report-2024/