According to Nielsen, 2.9 million adult consumers in Southeast Michigan use social media every month, an audience that continues to expand. As a result of this growth, social media has become a crucial part of local advertising campaigns.

Social media allows Detroit business owners to continually be in front of their target customers and to stay top-of-mind. It allows businesses to communicate daily and be the first company on call when needed. Social media has become essential for marketing local goods and services.

The best part is that social media is free to use for both Detroit consumers and business owners.

There is no subscription service for social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram which, according to Nielsen, are used by 75.7% of Detroit consumers each month. There are no monthly payments or premium memberships required to unlock more services.

Based on projections from the National Retail Federation (NRF), Southeast Michigan consumers are on track to spend $63-billion with retailers by the end of this year. This would be 13.5% higher than was spent in 2020.

To earn a significant share of these retail dollars, Detroit area business owners are expected to spend $1.6 billion to advertise by year's end, according to Borrell Associates. This company tracks advertising expenditures in local markets across the U.S.

To ensure they are spending their advertising and marketing dollars wisely, many Detroit business owners research how to best target prospective customers by using local media. An exceptional resource for local business owners to investigate the media habits of localconsumers is on the advice section of AdvertiseInDetroit.com.  

Here are the top five most-read articles on the site in 2021:

Every month, 3.1 million adults in Southeast Michigan use social media, according to Nielsen. Seventy-three percent of these consumers use Facebook, far more than other sites like Instagram (also owned by Facebook), Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

As a stand-alone medium, Facebook is used by more people in Detroit than watch local cable channels. Only Detroit radio and local TV reach more consumers.

The large audience commanded by social media has attracted a significant amount of advertising dollars from local advertisers. According to Borrell Associates, a company that measures advertising expenditures across the county, Detroit area businesses are expected to spend $343 million on social media advertising, a 26.6% increase over 2022. The overwhelming majority of these dollars are being spent with Facebook.

Yesterday, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the company was changing its name to "Meta".  This change, though, only affects the name of the parent company. There will be no change to the company's brands like Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp.

How will this name change affect Detroit businesses that advertise on Facebook?

Southeast Michigan business owners are expected to invest $964-million during 2021 to advertise to consumers connected to the internet. This forecast was produced by Borrell Associates, a company that tracks business advertising expenditures across the country.

These online marketing dollars will be spent on banner advertising, search engine marketing, email, as well as audio and video advertising. This is all to capture the attention of shoppers and buyers as they go about their connected days.

According to Nielsen, 92.9% of adult consumers in the Detroit area have access to the internet. They connect, primarily, with desktop and laptop computers; smartphones; or tablets.

Ninety-six percent of Detroit adults spend at least one hour per week online, with most spending at least 10 hours connected.

How important is Twitter to Southeast Michigan consumers? Yesterday, for instance, the social media platform was mentioned in at least ten articles published by the Detroit News yesterday.  Almost every local TV newscast included references to the site as well.

Twitter's outsized presence in the news, however, is enormously disproportional to the importance of the micro-blogging app in the life of Detroit's consumers.

According to Nielsen, only about 16.5% of adults in Detroit use Twitter during the course of a month. This is minuscule compared to other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Twitter offers 20 different options that Metro Detroit small business owners can utilize to market their goods and services to local consumers.  The platform's minimal reach, however, can hamper the success of any advertising campaign.

Following the lead of many national marketers, some Metro Detroit small business owners are considering canceling or, at minimum, pausing their advertising schedules with social media network Facebook and its co-owned photo-sharing platform, Instagram.

According to the New York Times, "more than 400 companies, from Coca-Cola and Adidas to Ford and Lego, have vowed to halt advertising on the social network, in a growing protest over how it handles hate speech and other harmful content".

With the pandemic figured in, Southeast Michigan business owners were expected to spend $199 million on Facebook and Instagram advertising in 2020. This is according to Borrell Associates, a firm that specializes in the collection and analysis of local marketing expenditures in every city across the United States. But these expenditures could shrink if the protests become louder.

Every type of Detroit business imaginable, including clothing stores, plumbers, HVAC repair, funeral homes, restaurants, dentists, and nonprofits, has come to realize how powerfully social media can contribute to their bottom lines.

Part of what makes Facebook and Instagram attractive to small business owners is the enormous reach these platforms have among consumers. Locally, the audience size for these two social media sites now rival Detroit radio, TV, cable, and newspaper outlets.

For small business owners considering a hiatus from social media advertising, there is a viable way to redirect these dollars into a different medium without losing the marketing equity or momentum built-up on Facebook.

Facebook usage has swelled since the onset of the Covid-19. 

According to Nielsen, before the current chaos, 59% of Metro Detroit adults used Facebook each month. This was significantly fewer than were reached by local radio or television each week.

According to the New York Times, however, since the start of the Coronavirus, daily Facebook traffic has increased by 27%. This compares to 33% growth in the amount of time consumers spend listening to local radio during a similar period.

Based on the surge in Facebook consumption, Southeast Michigan small business owners might be tempted to purchase advertising on the social media platform to augment their regular, free postings. Here are are few facts these businesses should consider before investing.

Every week, 2,985,400 adult consumers tune-in to a Detroit radio station. That is way more than are reached by other media, including local television, newspaper, social media, or streaming audio sites like Pandora and Spotify.

A more significant number for thousands of Southeast Michigan small business owners who advertise on Detroit radio is how many of these listeners stick around when their commercials come on.

A 2011 Nielsen study discovered that, on average, 93% of listeners stayed with the radio station they are tuned-to when the commercials come on. That number amazed many advertisers at the time who believed that audiences were far more likely to defect when the music stopped.

A lot has changed since 2011. Metro Detroit consumers have many more media options and can instantly connect to each  with a button-push, mouse-click, screen-tap, or voice command. With all of these choices, do radio audiences still stay tuned during commercial breaks?

The chaos created in Southeast Michigan by the onset of Coronavirus has been a disruptive force among consumers. 

Work routines, buying habits, family life, and media consumption have all been palpably affected. These are all factors that need to be considered by small business owners who continue to advertise their goods and services during the crisis.

Before the current chaos, advertising on Detroit radio, by any metric, was the best way a local small business could advertise.

For instance, pre-Coronavirus, 2.9 million adult consumers tuned-in to a Metro Detroit radio station every week. This is significantly more than watched local TV, read a newspaper, accessed social media, or streamed audio from sites like Pandora and Spotify.

New research released from Nielsen indicates that amidst the current crisis, listening to local radio remains little changed. This is great news for those Michigan small business owners who are depending on advertising for their long-term survival.

How quickly the millennials have grown up.

According to Nielsen, 61% of all Detroit area parents with children under the age of 18 are millennials.  

From the time their kids are born until they reach they are 17, these young parents will spend, on average, $233,000 per child. This does not include the cost of college.

Currently, there are 993,688 children under the age of 18 living in Metro Detroit. That makes the local millennial-parenting economy worth upwards of $231 billion. These dollars are being spent, among other things, on diapers, daycare, transportation, toys, education, electronics, clothing, and health care.

For Southeast Michigan small business owners interested in competing for a substantial portion of this multi-billion dollar pool of parental cash, they must advertise to millennial moms and dads. By almost any measurement, advertising on Detroit radio is the best way to reach this audience.