The digital age has pushed businesses into moving a lot of their marketing efforts to online platforms. Most of this takes place on social media. More than 90% of businesses say that they are using social media to market their companies and generate revenue.
These high number of digital marketing users aren’t on purpose. Businesses have found out the power of targeting their audience for low-cost by using campaigns on social media.
Keep reading if you’re looking to grow and improve your business but haven’t considered building an online presence. Here are 10 benefits of using social media marketing for your business.
1. Promote Brand Awareness
One important half of business is actually building it- putting systems into place, getting your branding together, etc. The other important part is getting people to know and pay attention to you. If you haven’t done the second part then the first part becomes obsolete.
Social media marketing will help you out with the second part. You can promote your brand to large numbers of people at one time and attract supporters. The more you make your audience aware of your brand, the more popular and familiar it becomes.
2. Engage With Audience
The internet has thinned the veil between big corporations and consumers. Nowadays, people are used to seeing and hearing their favorite brands interact with customers. This creates general trust and admiration from buyers.
You can use social media marketing as a means to engage with your audience to build genuine connections. This can be done through simple tasks, such as answering comments on your social media pages, asking poll questions or re-sharing people’s content that is relevant to your brand.
3. Gather Consumer Data
While you are engaging and connecting with your audience, there is a good chance you’ll begin to see various trends and behavioral patterns from buyers. This is because social media marketing is a great, affordable advertising tool for gathering information on your target audience without seeming too intrusive.
People will typically tell you what they like or don’t like through tweets and hashtags. They’ll share content that is, either, loveable or controversial. Either way, you’ll figure out how to get their attention.
Some social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, even provide business accounts with inside analytics on how their audience is acting and responding. These user insights can help you to improve your marketing strategy for the future.
4. Spread Shareable Content
The online world is a content-driven environment. Businesses who produce quality content that is evergreen and shareable are usually the ones in the lead. This content is used as a vehicle to go out and bring people back to your company’s pages.
The whole point is to make shareable content that is relevant and valuable to your audience. The content will reach the eyes of more people the more times it is shared.
Make sure you leave some sort of watermark or link on your published content so that people are able to find you as the original source. This is important because the internet moves so fast that it’s easy for creators to get lost in the sharing process.
5. Drive Traffic To Website
So you’ve probably built a website and now you’ll just wait for the visitors to start rolling in. Build it and they’ll come, right?
Well, not quite.
You can speed up the process by using social media marketing to send people to your website or landing page. When you make a post, for instance, add a call-to-action (CTA) and a link for your followers. Give them clear and concise instructions.
All of your content should have a purpose. And when it comes to posts that are intended to drive traffic, everything should be a seamless process for leads. It would be beneficial to get in the habit of including links often and keeping them visible and easy to reach.
6. Provide Customer Service
Most customer complaints should be handled in private via email or phone. However, there will be times where an angry customer comes along to bash your business in the public eye. This is the perfect time for you to turn foes into fans.
Take these opportunities to provide exceptional customer service, even if it’s right in the comment section. This will build trust around your company’s reputation when it comes to treating your audience with respect.
7. Make Announcements
One of the great advantages of social media is that most people check it often. If you’ve built a solid following of your target audience, this is another great place to keep them updated.
It’s convenient to use social media marketing for certain announcements, such as if your business is having a sale or making changes to some policies. You can also answer any questions quickly.
8. Find Collaborations
Collaborating with other brands is a great way to increase your company’s reach and grow your audience. Social media is the perfect place to find other businesses that are willing to collaborate for the same purposes.
Once you’ve found a brand to collaborate with, consider running giveaways and contests. The customer participation from these events will help to get your name out quickly.
9. Research Competition
Besides being friendly with other brands, social media marketing can help you to keep an eye on what they’re up to as well. You’ll be able to research and study competition marketing efforts and dissect their influence.
This will to give you a competitive edge and keep you in the running to gaining a larger customer base.
10. Keep Marketing Budget Low
This last benefit may be one of the most important to businesses with smaller advertising budgets. Most of the social media marketing is free.
You can build a loyal audience, spread brand awareness, drive traffic and generate sales without spending a penny. This is valuable if you are just starting out and want to build authority around your brand in an affordable way.
Ready To Use Social Media Marketing Successfully For Your Business?
There are many ways social media marketing can help promote and scale your business. If you strategy effectively, you can achieve this in a shortened amount of time.
One key that is important is eventually getting people back to your offers. If you’re looking for more assistance with turning your social media audience into leads, consider checking out this link for help.