In this day and age, social media provides value that businesses cannot overlook.
That’s why you must put in the time to establish your business’s social media presence. And you can do that by developing a robust social media marketing campaign.
There are a lot of advantages to building a strong brand on social media. For one, you can enhance your customer service, letting you communicate with customers and prospects at a whole new level.
You can also use social media to engage your audience, expand your market reach, build authority, and drive website traffic.
In this post, we will walk you through the nine fundamental ways social media can help your business thrive:
1. Boost Search Engine Ranking
There’s often a lot of debate that surrounds this topic. However, the bottom line here is that social media can (and will) boost your search engine rankings.
Your site’s domain authority increases when your social media share rate increases. This eventually leads to enhanced search engine rankings of your pages.
But it’s more than just that. Most people will head to your social media profile first for various reasons. One is to read reviews and to know whether you are responsive to customer queries. From there, they can proceed to your website to make a purchase.
2. Direct Customer Communication
If you’re doing social media marketing for small businesses, social media enables you to learn more about your audience. It is also an excellent medium to get customer feedback.
You can ask your customers to share their thoughts, questions, and ideas so that they’ll get to know them better.
You can also respond quickly without needing to pick up the phone or worry that the customer didn’t see your response.
3. Positions You as an Industry Expert
Social media allows you to share entertaining, informative, or inspiring content. And when you do it often and appropriately, your target market will deem you an industry expert.
As such, you will become their go-to business in case they need your products or services. Plus, customers are likely to recommend you to their friends and family.
4. Gain Market Clout
The internet, more importantly, social media, has changed the way we viewed the term, “celebrity.”
These days, people make a lot of money and become household names on what they say and do on social media.
Although it can be expensive and time-consuming, working with influencers is a great way to build brand awareness. After all, influencers have a lot of followers. This can work wonders for your brand, especially if a social media personality backs it.
The thing is, the clout of influencers is growing, and marketers are starting to recognize it. So, tap right into the influencer game, and see how your business will grow.
5. Engage Your Customers
Social media lets you interact with people who already love your brand.
Apart from that, it gives your customers a direct line to your business.
Staying engaged with audiences and communities shows them that you’re available when they need you. Consumers are now keener than ever before to have direct access to brands.
If you’re not one of those brands that can give this level of access to your customers, you are giving them away to your competitors. And what’s the point of being on social media if you do not “socialize” online?
So, in all your social media posts, stay active and relevant to your followers. Ensure that you’re responding to comments and questions that people post on these pieces of content.
This allows you to build customer engagement on a profoundly personal level.
6. Competitive Sleuthing
To stay relevant and get ahead of the competition, you must know people’s sentiments about your business. This includes knowing what they say about your products or services.
It’s equally vital that you know what people are saying about your competitors. For instance, tracking social mentions of your competitors may show pain points about their products. This can give you insight into how you can improve your products and promote them to your target market.
Doing so may allow you to win more customers in the process. And if your customers have positive sentiments about your products or services, you can use this to your advantage. For instance, you can turn these reviews into marketing collateral.
How quickly do your competitors respond to any online complaints?
Do they have an ideal brand-customer relationship? Or will they wait long enough for someone else to step in and then solve their customers’ problems?
There’s a wide range of potential benefits to learning more about your competition.
7. Cost-effective Marketing
As social networks keep updating their algorithm, it can be challenging to catch your target market’s attention. That’s why you needed to take advantage of the low-cost social media advertising.
Why? Simply because you can target social media users who are likely to buy from you. It is just a matter of knowing your target market well.
As compared to traditional advertising, social media is a lot cheaper. You don’t need to spend a significant amount to reach out to people, boost your reach, and grow your business.
8. Drive Referral Traffic
A lot of businesses are now using social media to increase site traffic.
So, if you haven’t built a solid online presence on social media, you’ll be losing out on organically generated traffic. Meaning, your traffic is only limited to the number of people that are following you.
However, this isn’t always a good idea. To gain more traffic, you need to expand your brand’s reach.
So, what’s the most effective way to generate that traffic?
Well, first, you have to profile your business on every social media platform that’s relevant. Afterward, use these platforms by sharing customized content tailored to each of them.
Moreover, creating a solid social media presence will encourage followers to go through the lead funnel. From there, you can have a steady stream of paying customers.
Next, you need to ensure that everything’s effortless for your audience. This includes purchasing your products, leaving a review, and recommending your business.
Finally, add a Share feature on an interesting quote, statistic, or other types of valuable information to make it shareable. This makes it only a click away for readers to share your content.
9. Resonate With Your Customers
One of the benefits of social media is that it gives your brand a voice. These days, consumers are uncomfortable with buying from an unknown brand or entity.
Therefore, they’re looking for review sites and a company’s social media profiles to check if other customers are satisfied.
If you genuinely want to connect with prospective customers, you need to showcase who you are as a brand. Do you have values that relate to your target customers? Does the quality of your product or service represent these values?
The more you have a direct relationship with people, the more likely they want to do business with you.
Social media allows you to do that, allowing you to engage with them directly.
The thing is, having no presence on social media means no presence at all. Therefore, you must set up a social media plan and action right now. Doing so allows your business to thrive in the long run.
