Most of our daily actions are somehow web-related: checking out the weather app before leaving the house in the morning, communicating with friends on social media, checking product prices in online stores before buying them (or even buy them online), among others.

However, if we go back two decades, the internet was not yet the platform it is today. The ordinary citizen could never imagine the potentialities it would have and the importance that it would gain in our personal, interpersonal and commercial relations. Just as we could not predict the advent of the Internet twenty years ago, the hegemony of social media and its relationship with the marketing arena was not evident for a few years either.

Nowadays, we are witnessing a transformation in the business world in which digital has assumed an essential character and where online presence is absolutely indispensable for companies that want to remain relevant. However, there is still a generation of administrators, decision makers and CEOs who remain skeptical about the importance of social networking in digital marketing. In this article, we explain to you why your company should not live without being present on social media in 2017.

For many Digital Marketing experts, the main way for companies to succeed in today's commercial market is to incorporate social media as a top priority in their marketing strategy. Not being present on Facebook, Twitter or other channels of communication is the equivalent of who insisted that the internet would become obsolete two decades ago.

According to Pordata, the percentage of internet users in Portugal in 2016 by age group was 98% between 16 and 35 years, 89% between 35 and 44 and 72% between 45 and 54 years. Only between 55 and 75 years old were registered percentages under 50%.

On the other hand, the data collected by the same entity concerning companies with internet presence show that large companies are mostly present on the internet - 95% of companies with more than 250 employees have internet presence - but the percentage for small and medium-sized enterprises is considerably smaller, with only 31% of companies with fewer than 10 employees on the internet.

These data show that small businesses are less aware of the potential of their presence on the internet, whether in the form of a website, profiles on social media, among others. The use of social media for digital marketing is only part of the advantages. Today, large companies use these platforms to simplify customer service, online commerce and even Human Resources, virtualizing a typical model of traditional commerce.

CEOs' reluctance to acknowledge the relevance of social networks can be overcome by showing real results with conversions resulting from contacts obtained through social media. The web tools have advanced in such a way that it is now possible to evaluate these results in real time. Investing in a strategy that includes social media is essential for your business to survive the future and connect with new consumers.

Not only does the new generation of consumers born in the "digital age" begins to gain expression and purchasing power, but also the consumption habits of previous generations have changed. Pordata’s data mentioned above shows that Internet consumption is not exclusive to the younger generation, and that the age groups that previously favored traditional commerce have access to and use the internet in their daily lives.

As so, being present on social media is being where customers are and extending the reach of your brand to a much wider range of potential customers. To deny it is to live in the past.