These days, social media is at the heart of every business’s main marketing campaign. Not only do sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook present cost-effective advertising platforms, but they also reach a global audience of almost three billion people perfect for social media for business.
According to the Social Media Examiner, around 96% of marketing professionals currently have a social media presence. Sherpa Marketing also found that more users follow brands on social media channels than celebrities and that over 80% of Instagram users alone follow at least one business.
These statistics show that using social media for business is not just about posting status updates and hoping the right people will see them; it’s about conducting a fully-fledged marketing strategy to target the right consumers at the right time and making your content stick.
In other words, if you’re not using social media platforms, you’re missing out on a fast and inexpensive way to interact with almost half of the world’s population. If that’s not enough to convince you, however, then here are some of the main benefits of using social networks for business.
Social Media For Business: Build brand awareness
Social media for business can help you find your market and play to your audience. Not only can you use searches to find trending hashtags and conversations about relevant topics, but you can also use tools like Facebook Page Insights to see how well specific posts perform, who saw them, and whether there were any likes or shares.
In addition to this, you can also target paid ads such as Facebook ads and Instagram stories, to your user demographic (by determining their age, gender, and interests, for example) to make sure the right people see your content.
A full social media marketing strategy should include regular insights using web analytics, so you can better tailor content to your target audience. Using these insights, you can learn what works and what doesn’t and then respond with appropriate action to make sure you’re continually optimising your approach.
Social Media For Business: Give your brand a voice
To connect with customers (and potential customers), you’ll need to show a human side to your brand. To do this, you should create a “voice” that echoes your brand’s values and ethos, a great way to humanise your social platforms is to upload live videos.
You also need to make sure that your “voice” speaks to the customers you target, and that all your online content is consistent in tone and style. Many brands hire content creators, tone-of-voice experts, or social media managers to do this for them.
The ability to create a real human connection is one of the key benefits of using social media for business. In the marketing world, these connections are often referred to as “meaningful relationship moments.” You can create relationships with your audience via social channels by addressing them directly in your content, introducing the “faces” behind your company, and showing how other customers benefit from using your products. This is a great way to build up your engagement rates online.
Social Media For Business: Social media increases website traffic
There’s no getting around this one: social media accounts (when leveraged correctly) increase traffic to your website in some ways. Sharing content from your blog or website is a brilliant way to earn organic leads to your site while participating in social chats and leaving comments on other people’s posts is a great way to build exposure.
Although social media for business provides an excellent platform for promoting your business, you want to avoid being too “salesy” or overly promotional. With so much content on the web, users can spot this kind of desperation a mile off and steer clear. Try to provide genuine value in everything you create, whether it’s a one-time offer, informative article, or product giveaway.
Social Media For Business: Connects you to influencers
Influencers are usually social media experts, so much so that many of them earn a full-time living by producing great content and sharing photos and videos online. As such, partnering with a social influencer is a great way to drive leads to your website. Think of it like word-of-mouth marketing in the digital age.
When searching for a social influencer, try to find an Instagram or Facebook user with at least 5,000 followers: that’s 5,000 potential customers if you pay an influencer to endorse your product.
Be aware that you get what you pay for in this area. If you go after the top influencers with millions of followers, they’re going to demand a lot more money than someone with a smaller following. You also need to make sure there’s a demand for your product or service within the influencer’s audience. Otherwise, you’re throwing money at a wasted campaign.
Social Media For Business: Social media provides a (mostly) free advertising platform
One of the great things about social media is that all businesses can use it, doesn’t matter if you have a big business or a small business. The downside is that most successful social media campaigns rely on paid advertising or insights, as this is how the websites make money.
Although sites like Facebook and Instagram are mostly free to use, if you want to compete with the top businesses in everybody’s social feeds, you will need to pay toward your setup. Whether you hire a social media manager or Internet marketing agency to take care of your campaign or you do it yourself, it’s going to cost you a bit if you want to see significant results in your social media network.
Social Media For Business: Helps you to promote content
You could create the best, most well-researched content in the world, but if you don’t put it in front of people, then no one’s going to see it. Therefore, to maximise the potential of social media for your business, you also need to have a content marketing plan in place.
To do this, you’ll need to set specific content marketing goals (e.g., growing your social media following or landing a certain number of page views per month). You’ll also need to make sure these content marketing goals align with your business goals, whether that’s to build a list of email subscribers or sell more of a product to increase revenue.
Again, if you don’t know where to start with content marketing, there are professional companies and freelancers with the expertise to deliver a full social media for business and content marketing service. HC Media Group is a family-owned digital marketing and consultancy business with over 20 years of experience. We can help with your social media marketing, lead generation, affiliate advertising, content marketing, and more.
Social Media For Business: Social media aids in reputation management
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your reputation will suffer if you’re on social media. Your customers are already talking about you on their social channels, whether you’re there to respond or not. Yes, you may be upping the stakes by giving people a place to review your services, but the internet has plenty of space to do that, and you can’t control them in the same way you can your profiles.
One of the benefits of using social media for business is that it provides a channel of communication between you and the customer, which helps create a high-quality customer service experience. This is because, if someone complains about your business, you can respond in a timely and professional manner, before the situation gets out of hand and your reputation is damaged further. If someone is singing your praises, on the other hand, you can promote their review on social media and give thanks for their comments.
These days, it’s vital to build a positive online storefront through customer feedback and testimonials — and social media provides the perfect platform for this. New customers are unlikely to trust your organisation if they can’t find reviews online, or indeed if you don’t have a presence on social media. Trust is everything when it comes to business, and if customers can’t find you, they’ll think you have something to hide.