11 Benefits Of Social Media Marketing Modern Businesses
In this article, I will explain 11 ways social media can benefit a business or company in going digital with their product, services or brand. Other than just socializing, social media can take an important role in building businesses.
Social Media, which comprises of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Tiktok, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. are tools and can only do as much.
What more we do with them is up to us and our goal of using them. That is why is often advisable to have written goals and objectives while going digital. Because the tools will not be the problem at last but how best to make use of them.
Now, there are many ways to employ the tools to our bidding to grow audience, and I will list them out below:
- Brand Awareness
It is not supposed to surprise you that up to 83% of Instagram users admit to discovering new products on the Instagram social app.
- Gives Your Business Human Nature
Social media will enable businesses to make real connection with fans and followers, ask them questions and answer theirs, engage with them on current and trending issues that concerns everybody. You can also showcase new products, products that you augment yours. Once your followers see the level of commitment and passion you give your brand, they will stick close to you, because they may find you helpful one day or recommend your product to somebody that does need it. And it takes trust for somebody to pass your brand to others.
- Makes Your Brand a Thought Leader
With Social Media, it is possible to be the go-to place when people are seeking for information or insight into what is and what is not happening in your sector. Research confirms that people are losing confidence and trust in government and popular media houses. And more and more people are moving to brands to find the actual truth of what is happening in their sector. They tend to trust information from brands rather than media and government.
Using B2B social networks like LinkedIn, you can stand as an authority in your field by being active and dishing out reports, research findings, news and information as it relates to your business sector.
- Live In People’s Mind
Traditional Advertisement has ridden upon the structure of human mind to thrive for ages, forcing our eyes to see their brand Ads on Television, Newspaper, Billboard, Magazines and hearing it on radio. This strategy trains the mind to always think of a product frequently seen when we have need, they will provide. With Social Media, the game has not changed a bit. Up to 70% of people check their social media accounts at least once a day with about 49% of them making multiple visits per day. Using Social media, business can utilize the same strategy and create a little room in their audience’s mind.
However, posting salesy contents every second of the day often backfires and have negative effect than intended. Once they become active online, followers and fan will get to know they are still around and in business and ready to offer their services too. That will require entertaining and informative contents from the business. Using some popular and new software, you can get editable templates to use on your posts in social media. I have a downloadable template prepared for exactly that here.
- Increase Web/Blog Traffic
Aside from organic growths, social media and paid advertisement are forces to reckon with when opting for web or blog traffic. It is not enough to create killer headlines, sales copy or high quality and accurate content, efforts should also be made to get it in front of your audience. Including your website or blog links in your post would sure get you some clicks thereby exposing your brand to a new audience.
- Sourcing Contents For Posting
I call this strategy self-sustaining social strategy. Social media pages with substantive followers or fan can curate content from followers for the next post. It can start with a simple question to your audience about their opinion on your product, customer service or anything. Creating content from this feedback hit home to the demands of your customers.
Using social listening tools too can help to feed you with what people are already saying about your brand. It is recommended to go with both.
- Reputation Management
Whether you are online at all or not, it is possible that people are talking about you already, your business, or your line of business in general. Those comments may be positive or negative, so you need to be aware of them and where they are coming from. Social media gives you the power to pick important posts about your brand and make changes when it calls for such. Negative comments or customer frustration can also be picked up and resolved or responded to. At least, It will present you with the opportunity to narrate your own side of things, story, policy or business goal, and objective. Alongside, publicity can also be tagged along when the post is a positive one. Use social to your advantage.
- Creating Buyer or Customer Persona
With huge amounts of data social media companies generate about customers, it is very easy to use those data and information to create the ideal customer who is more likely to patronize your business. Once created, you can now tailor your content to them.
- Creating Reports and Analytics
When you spend money for your business on social media, you will need to know if you are making a return on your investment or not. Social media analytics will help know just that. Almost all social media companies have some form of analytics to track your activities. Your ad spending, comments, views, shares, comments, likes and dislikes will all be made available to you on your dashboard. Armed with such information, you will get to see how far your effort is paying off.
- Competition Monitoring
In Business, your competitor is more like your enemy, though we don’t like to admit it that way. So at least being on par with them is good, but you need to also look out on what next, what they are planning, when and how do they intend to promote it. This will also enable you to make preparation for a counter-marketing response, if not, you may be left behind without even knowing.
Just as important as that, you will also track mentions of your competitor and listen to what people are saying, posting, and commenting about your them. Information gathered from this exercise will point out to you the weak areas in your competitor’s business. What you do after that is totally up to you.
- Targeting Advertising
You can determine the number of people you want to reach on social media and create a specific advert for that. The targeting ability of social media platforms will allow you to specify very detailed information on the type and persona of people you want your advert to reach. I spoke about buyer persona and how social media will help you create one for your business. Things like gender, age, demographic location, and likes will be needful in making sure your adverts hit home to the people intended. This way, you will be making a full utilization of our budget.
In conclusion, there are other benefits of using social media like influencer partnership, promoting content, gauging sentiments, Retargeting, boosting sales, crises management, Customer and audience engagement, customer service/support, generating leads, going viral, and staying top of the Industry news through social listening.
However, it is my humble advice to always go with what you need and leave the rest. It is very difficult to run a business full time and do all these things by yourself. The main focus should be business first, but a budget can be made available to outsource your social media management to a third party or social media management company.
I hope I have shone the light of guidance to the right part with this article.