If you aren’t utilizing a variety of social media marketing benefits to build your business, we’re here to get you on the bandwagon. The average time spent using social media per day is 151 minutes – and growing. That's a lot of minutes. These people are following and engaging with brands daily, and reaching an audience quickly has never been easier.
Regardless of which industry, products and services you offer, or tenure of your company, here are eight social media benefits to take advantage of your business right now.
Increase Brand Awareness
You want your audience to know who you are, don’t you? With billions of social media users utilizing platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, your business has an opportunity to reach a high-quantity of new potential customers on more than one social network. By just a simple click, you can expose your content to an existing or new audience, as well as join trending conversations to make your brand more discoverable.
Connect with Customers
Your customers and prospective customers aren’t going to engage, purchase from, or follow a brand that doesn’t appeal to them. Use your social media channels to provide a human element of brand by developing a voice, values, and content that resonates with your audience. The more you can engage and strike an emotion with your current or new audience, the more your connections and brand loyalty with customers grows.
Increase Website Referral Traffic
Sharing strategic, high-quality content through organic social posts or paid social advertising is an easy way to increase traffic to your company website. Whether it’s a downloadable guide or ever-green content you’re promoting to your audience, social media is a quick way to gain traction to specific pages of your site you’d like to create awareness for. Those who find your content valuable are then more likely to come back to the site or take an action such as purchasing a product, requesting a quote, or contacting your business.
Generate Leads and Sales
Whether it's through paid advertising or organic posts, social media is an easy way to drive attention to specific products, offerings or services your business provides. It's crucial you share content that will connect with your audiences but don't forget to consider how the content you share will ultimately guide audiences to make a purchase or want to learn more about your services.
Social media is also a way for customers to express initial interest in your brand or products. For example, if you are running a lead generation paid advertising campaign on Facebook to promote 15% off a product in store, a customer that completes your form and submits their personal information in order to receive this 15% off coupon is telling your brand there is interest to try your product. If someone is willing to give up their information, this shows they believe there is value in what you're offering.
Brand Reputation Management
Sometimes, things happen that a business may not be able to plan for and your reputation may be on the line. Your social media channels are owned by your brand. Use these channels to portray your brand the way you want your customers to perceive you, and if there are times where your credibility is questioned, social media is a way to clear the air and represent the mission/values your company stands for.
Customer Service
Whether we always like it or not, customers are more likely to take to social media if they have an issue with your company or brand. They are also likely to take to social media for praise of a new product they love or a positive experience.
Regardless of whether you are dealing with a displeased or happy customer, use your social media channels as an addition to your customer support team. Take time to personally respond to customer issues and provide a next step for resolution. Take time to thank your customers for their positive messaging.
Nobody wants to talk to a robot - make your responses personalized and genuine. Your customers will notice and this can speak volumes about your brand.
Audience Learning
All social media networks have analytics that provide detailed demographic information about your audience and those interacting with your brand. Use this information to learn more about your current and prospective customers. From there, you can use the information you've gathered to better tailor your messaging throughout your social promotions and work towards accomplishing business goals.
Brand Sentiment
How your audience responds and interacts with your brand on social media can also say a lot about whether or not your efforts are working. More importantly, you can learn how customers are perceiving your brand through their own messages they share. Using social media monitoring tools such as Hootsuite or Sendible can help you better gauge sentiment of posts your audience is sharing around your brand, monitor conversations, and truly understand how your audience feels.
Business Promotion
Social media is a great way to reach potential new customers and promote your business. Through paid social advertising you can target specific audiences that fit your ideal customer base and drill down on targeting options such as geography, language, or interests. Depending on your social media strategy or business goals, you can promote specific content to that audience about your business or brand. Whether you're striving to drive leads or gain awareness for your brand, social media paid advertising is a great avenue.
Is your business looking for additional ways to market on social media? Aztek can help with building your company social media strategy, maintaining your campaigns, and analyzing the results. Contact our team today to learn more.
