More than four billion use social media regularly. That’s more than half the world’s population.
As a business, can you afford to sleep on those numbers?
Social media should already be a part of your business marketing efforts. If it’s not, you’re missing out big time.
To show you the value of social media, we’ve compiled for you seven ways to use social media as part of your business marketing strategy.
1. Connect With Your Audience
With so many shady brands out there, customers value authenticity. It’s how you gain trust and eventually loyalty, something that every business wants.
The path towards authenticity, trust, and loyalty begins with going where your customers are. With half of the global population accessing the internet, it’s likely that your audience is on social media.
Creating a cross-platform presence for your brand lets you connect and start interacting with your audience. They get to see the human side of what was merely a business entity, which helps foster a lasting bond.
2. Increase Website Traffic and Boost Conversions
Attracting quality website traffic is vital for businesses. You want to keep increasing driving visitors to your landing pages, as this helps your marketing team capture leads and close sales.
While you can use SEO to bring in leads and gain conversions, social media offers you an even more lucrative alternative.
You’re literally exposed to billions of people, and your business could become a household name with one viral post.
As a brand, try to share content on your social pages consistently, and make use of ads to boost website traffic and conversions rates.
3. Customer Support
Customer support is an essential part of business marketing. According to experts, customers are willing to be loyal and even spend more on a business that offers them quick and personalized customer service.
This means a good customer support system boosts revenue, growth, and brand loyalty.
Social media gives you a quick and easy way to interact directly with your customers. As a brand, you should take advantage of this channel to improve your customer service efforts.
Considering social media is a fast mode of communication, companies should use it to satisfy customers’ growing need for instant support.
4. Establish Industry Leadership
The business world is super competitive. Regardless of your industry, there are hundreds, if not thousands of businesses just like yours offering similar products or services.
With the internet as a huge, chaotic marketplace, every brand is trying to raise its voice above its competitors.
With top-notch products or services, you may be tempted to let that speak for itself. However, such an approach can put you behind competitors whose products may not even be as good as yours.
If a competitor has raised their voice and positioned themselves as an industry expert, you may fall behind.
People trust businesses that demonstrate their expertise, are willing to offer valuable insight, and answer questions. Social media is the best platform to showcase yourself as an authority
5. Real-Time Engagement
One of the best features of social platforms is real-time communication, the next best alternative to a one-on-one conversation. Many companies are using this opportunity to engage their audience.
As a business, you can use social media to stay active and communicate with your followers on matters relating to your brand.
Maintained engagement helps people to naturally familiarize themselves with your brand, something that comes in handy during purchase decisions, as people tend to do business with companies they are familiar with.
Additionally, real-time engagement helps your business to keep track and stay updated on the conversations that are happening in your industry.
6. Affordable Promotion
Social media platforms offer affordable and highly effective advertising. One of the most popular examples of social ads that rival traditional forms of advertising is Facebook Ads.
Since social ads are not expensive compared to sales-driven options like Google Ads, you can use them to help build brand awareness.
The best thing about social media ads is that you can customize them to target specific audiences based on location, language, interests, etc.
7. Reputation Management
What we said about real-time engagement gains serious value when it comes to reputation management.
You see, people talk about their experiences with brands, whether those experiences are positive or negative. With the internet, sharing this type of information is easier than ever.
You’re going to see lots of information about your brand on social media, as people use the platform to voice their opinions.
When you’re present in these conversations, you get to offer more insight. When issues arise, you can quickly address them to show the public you care about your customers.
Conclusion
Social media is not just important for your business — it’s absolutely necessary. Its value can’t be denied.
In a world where a big part of social life has moved online, you can’t afford to look at things any other way.
Considering most of your audience is on social media, that’s where your brand should be!
Author bio:
Adam Marshall works with Grove at Murfreesboro in content marketing, writing about all things related to apartments, college, and real estate.