According to Nielsen, 1.5 million adult consumers in Las Vegas 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 Las Vegas 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 Las Vegas consumers and business owners.

There is no subscription service for social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram which, according to Nielsen, are used by 77.6% of Las Vegas consumers each month. There are no monthly payments or premium memberships required to unlock more services.

Every month, 1.4 million adults in Las Vegas use social media, according to Nielsen. Seventy-nine 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 Las Vegas than watch local TV stations. Only Las Vegas radio reaches 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, Las Vegas area businesses are expected to spend $158 million on social media advertising, a 25% 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 Las Vegas businesses that advertise on Facebook?

Las Vegas area business owners are expected to invest $473-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, 96% of adult consumers in the Las Vegas area have access to the internet. They connect, primarily, with desktop and laptop computers; smartphones; or tablets.

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

How important is Twitter to Clark County consumers? Yesterday, for instance, the social media platform was mentioned in at least ten articles published by the Las Vegas Review-Journal 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 Las Vegas's consumers.

According to Nielsen, only about 13% of adults in Las Vegas 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 Las Vegas 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.

Las Vegas retailers spend a considerable amount of time and money marketing their small businesses on social media.  Is this effort paying off?

Each month, according to Nielsen, 1.2 million Clark County adults use Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. This equates to 70% of consumers.  This reach is rather anemic compared to Las Vegas radio and TV, which attracts considerably more users in a single week than these social media platforms do over 30 days.

Among local millennials, the monthly reach of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is eclipsed by the weekly reach of Las Vegas radio.

The number of consumers reached by an advertising campaign, according to Nielsen, is the media consideration that has the most significant effect on increasing sales. 

If you don't have time to read this entire article, then I will tell you right now. The best way to advertise in Clark County is on Las Vegas radio.

A vital function of advertising is to build mental availability, which nudges a consumer toward the purchase of a product or service. It also serves to provide public notice that a product or service exists and is available for purchase.

Consumers in the valley are are expected to spend at least $39 billion at retail this year. To claim a greater share of this giant pool of cash requires local business owners of every size to advertise their goods and services. As Professor Jef Richards at Michigan State University points out, “Advertising is totally unnecessary…unless you want to make money."

The first radio station in Las Vegas went on-the-air in 1940.  Sixty-four years later, Facebook inaugurated the social media era.  Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, and hundreds of other sites quickly followed.

As social media matured from a novelty to part of consumers' daily rituals, some Las Vegas business owners began to experiment with advertising.

By every key advertising metric, though, Las Vegas radio remains the best choice for a small business to market their goods and services. Here's why.