Strategy and originality are both necessary for social media marketing. Its significance cannot be emphasized, despite the fact that it could appear overpowering. Nearly 92% of marketers use social media as a component of their marketing strategies since it is so important. Additionally, 78% of salespeople who use social media outsell their peers who don't use it. Additionally, its advantages go far beyond boosting sales.
But not every company is aware of the advantages of social media marketing. In actuality, only about 40% of small firms use social networking. The fact that an additional 16% are unlikely to utilize social media for business at all is even more alarming.
It is obvious that there is a gap between people who are using social media effectively and others who are having difficulty doing so. Continue reading if this scenario describes you. You're about to discover how using social media to promote your business can help. You'll learn about a few of the advantages, such as:
- Using social media and linking to it will significantly improve the amount of traffic to your website.
- Ultimately, you spend money on marketing to promote your goods and services, right?
Why is Social Media Important For Your Business?
You must stay current on new trends in your field if you want to survive in a cutthroat market. As a matter of fact, 72% of businesses use data from social media to make wise business decisions. How then can you outperform your competitors and make sure that your company is doing the necessary steps to succeed? of course, by utilizing social media. Here are 20 reasonings for using social media into your company's marketing plan.
1. Builds Brand Awareness and Recognition
One of the most crucial marketing objectives for every organization is to increase brand awareness and recognition. Customers want to purchase recognizable brands, which explains this. Many consumers even exhibit some levels of brand loyalty, which has long-term positive effects for businesses. Thank goodness for social media, which makes developing a brand simple and successful.
Compared to traditional media, social media has the advantage of making your brand more accessible to consumers quickly. Additionally, even when people aren't considering your brand or product, it captures their attention.
Remember to take note of your profile and cover photos. Placing your logo wisely and frequently is an excellent method to build brand recognition. You want to ensure that it isn't too difficult or obstructive.
Make sure your brand's visual components are effectively conveyed.
Visit the Adidas Twitter account. Adidas maintains a tidy and professional Twitter account. They prominently display their identifiable emblem on their cover photo without being intrusive. This cover image is particularly effective because it promotes adidas' brand identity while showcasing their items.
2. Generates Conversation Around Your Brand
Conversations about your business, goods, and partners will arise as a result of a solid social media marketing plan.
Take this Xbox Game Pass tweet as an example. To announce that one of their titles was now playable on EA Play, they merely tweeted. As a result, they got a lot of positive comments on their product. They sparked conversation as well. Fans were engaging in real conversations that social media had helped to promote.
Advice: Respond to your audience's comments on your social media posts. Make sure they get the impression that the brand has a personality. They will have a better impression of your business and feel more appreciated if they don't feel like they are speaking to a robot.
Share information that naturally sparks conversation as a priority. Give other businesses you network with and work with kudos, for example.
Ask for opinions on your items.
Ask open-ended questions and then let the audience to respond to engage them.
3. Helps Understand Your Target Customers’ Interests
If you want to effectively contact your target audience, you must understand their interests. You can achieve this by keeping an eye on their online discussions of particular subjects. This process of understanding your audience's priorities and the trends they're following is known as social listening. Additionally, by learning about their problems, you may be able to provide material that addresses those problems.
Check out Belk's Twitter account. The message of women's empowerment presented in this tweet is strongly in line with the interests of their target audience. They build a better connection with their target audience by sharing the same ideas. Social listening can be useful if you're not sure how to match the interests of your target clients.
Tip: Include social listening in your daily routine to find out what your target market is talking about in your industry. Check out Mention if you want to develop your social listening skills (the same social listening tool used by the CoSchedule team).
4. Provides Platforms to Tell Your Brand’s Story
Sharing experiences and your brand's mission on social media is a fantastic idea. The image of your brand can be significantly impacted by effective storytelling. Depending on what you believe will be most helpful, these stories can be brief or in-depth.
For instance, consider this Starbucks post. They decided to post a video about a patron who had a touching experience at a Starbucks drive-through. They not only demonstrated how they had an effect on one of their clients, but they also communicated the idea that their good (or service) is good enough for someone to recommend them.
Advice: Not every story needs to be lengthy and complicated. A straightforward image can be used to convey meaning and make a point. It can significantly improve the public perception of your company as long as it tells a compelling story.
5. Helps You Gather Data About Your Audience
Social listening is comparable to audience research. Although it focuses more on your particular product, it uses the keywords that your target market will use. Social media can be used to acquire this data.
Tip: You can check the reach and insights of all your posts on many social media platforms.
To view the Facebook page insights for your page:
Visit the page you are in charge of managing.
On the left side of the screen, scroll down to the "Manage Page" section.
Select "Insights"
To view particular audience metrics, scroll down and choose "People."
To see your Twitter page's insights:
Open the tweet for which you wish to view the metrics.
Click on the "analytics" icon on the far right of the tweet.
Select "More" from the menu on the left side of your Twitter page.
To view general analytics that don't apply to any particular post, click "Analytics."
Using the mobile app, examine the insights for your Instagram page:
visit your profile.
Select "Insights" from the menu.
To see all of "Your Audience," scroll down and select "See All."
6. Helps Provide Responsive Customer Service
Customers now anticipate businesses to respond to their inquiries on social media. A significant investment in customer service can create long-lasting bonds between your business and its clients. The difficulty of providing excellent customer service is still present in the age of social media.
Social media enables instant communication and client input. Additionally, companies can reply to clients immediately away. Having a social media customer care strategy is crucial since 71% of customers who had a great experience with a brand on a social media platform stated they were more inclined to suggest that brand to the people they know.
Consider this illustration from the Spotify support Twitter account. Within a few hours of receiving a question from a consumer via Twitter, Spotify was able to respond and assist in finding a solution.
Tip: If you have different teams for customer support and social media, it's crucial to keep open lines of communication between them. Your staff won't become confused when offering customer assistance via social media this manner.
7. Helps Build Customer Loyalty
What could be better than building brand loyalty without costing anything? Customers engage with and follow the brands they like. In fact, 90% of consumers claim to make purchases from businesses they follow on social media.
Customers are more likely to choose you over your competitors if they follow you, which is an evident direct correlation. Additionally, if they are repeat clients, they will boost your traffic.
Keep your devoted audience interested and satisfied. Here are some suggestions:
Share discount codes with your followers on social media (while being careful to adhere to Facebook's policies on promotional content).
Ask open-ended questions that invite responses from your audience.
Give out affordable items that will make a statement, such stickers, patches, tees, sunglasses, lanyards, hats, and Koozies.
8. Helps Drive Traffic to Your Website
Social media marketing can help drive customers to your website. Although search engines are excellent, relying too heavily on the results means you're losing out on a ton of potential customers. More varied inbound traffic streams are possible through social media networks.
Although social networks are excellent for driving visitors to your website, you should also think about how frequently you should publish. You don't want to turn into that pushy salesman since you'll alienate your audience.
It's a good idea to stick to a regular posting schedule. This makes sure that your content is posted regularly.
Use bit.ly to shorten links before inserting them into posts and profiles. The shortened links will reduce file size and not appear obtrusive to the audience. (You may accomplish this using your CoSchedule social media calendar's interface with bit.ly.)
To direct users from their tweet to their website, Best Buy used the bit.ly link in the example below.
9. Tweets Can Show Up in Google Searches
Link building can be helped by social media, and this may indirectly affect SEO.
Tweets are displayed in search results on Google and Bing. People can use this tool to see what other people are saying about a subject they are interested in. Since more recent tweets will show up on the search engine results page for topics that are trending, it is more relevant.
Tip: You can arrange your social media posts so that they may be found and linked to by using a social media scheduling tool like CoSchedule's Marketing Calendar.
10. Helps Identify and Connect With Potential Business Partners and Collaborators
Connecting with new individuals is made feasible by social media. Here are some strategies you may use to make the most of this for your company:
- Facebook groups are used by 1.8 billion individuals. There are millions of groups on Facebook, so there's a good possibility you'll find some possible business partners there. You can meet people who might wish to work with your brand by joining those groups and getting involved.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn was created to assist professionals in connecting with possible clients, employees, or employers. In fact, 72% of B2B buyers publish critical information about their businesses on LinkedIn. Utilizing the network of over 467 million individuals on LinkedIn, you may conduct research and identify people who might wish to work together.
- Twitter: In addition to providing a platform for connecting with customers, Twitter also serves as individuals for your company. Utilize Twitter's list feature to put together groupings of users who could be useful for your social media objectives. Once you have identified these possible business partners, you may focus your engagement on them.
- Instagram: Instagram has developed into one of the top channels for connecting with content producers and brand collaborators. In fact, Instagram collaborations are increasing, and it is predicted that influencer marketing will increase in value to over $13.8 billion by 2021. Instagram creators can now indicate which businesses they are interested to working with by adding them to their "preferred brands list." Additionally, this provides innovators the upper hand when companies begin looking for new collaborators.
Advice: Take into account starting your own Facebook or LinkedIn group on the sector you work in. You can find discussions on the sector as a whole that can aid in your product and marketing development.
11. It’s Cost Effective
The majority of organic social media marketing is free. Making a social network profile and publishing original content are both free. For some, it might be sufficient, and the content's quality might serve as its own form of self-promotion. However, paying for promotion will help improve visibility if you want to go above and above and promote it more.
Write genuine material that doesn't sound like an advertisement. Your comments will appear to be spam. You should pay for something if it seems like an advertisement or contains a transactional call to action (such as Buy Now, 30% Off, Use This Coupon Code). Social media companies have recognized that many marketers view social media as a means of distributing free advertising, and as a result, are limiting the reach of unpaid advertisements. By all means, you should use social media to promote your business. However, make sure you pay for it to ensure a professional appearance and a good reach.
12. Helps With Repurposing Content
Recycling is beneficial, as we all know, so why not recycle your content? It merits to be viewed because you put a lot of effort into it. You can use the same content you've already created for a blog post or video on your social media sites. You can now access a group of people who might have missed your content the first time around. The messaging for your brand is also strengthened, and it may even improve the SEO of your content.
Neil Patel, for instance, routinely shares his tweets to Instagram. He reaches those who might not have a Twitter account by doing this. This provides him the chance to appear more than once in someone's feed if they follow him on both platforms.
Repurposing content is more than just posting it in multiple locations, as for example. Each post can be slightly modified to make it more distinctive. For instance, you could use Twitter or Instagram to share a remark from your most recent guest in order to advertise your podcast. Although the material won't be precisely the same, much of the work has already been done, making this a quick method to fill your social media schedule.
13. Social Media Retargeting Ads Can Re-engage Website Visitors
Retargeting is a fantastic social media marketing technique. In general, 92% of customers will go to a brand's website for the first time with no intention of making a purchase. Advertising can assist bring back the 92% of customers who left before they had the chance to make a purchase, even though receiving the 8% is fantastic. Retargeting advertising are one method of achieving that.
Retargeting works by compiling a list of visitors to your website and installing "cookies" in their browsers that are anonymous. The advertising are then displayed when they go to a social media site thanks to retargeting. This enables customers to think of your company outside of their visits to your website.
Retargeting tools are available that are effective and simple to use. Find a tool that works for you by checking out those options. Make use of them to market your goods. But be careful not to irritate your client.
14. Makes It Easy to Distribute Content
It's time to share the incredible, original stuff you've worked so hard to make with the world. Social media, fortunately, may assist you in disseminating your material such that it reaches your intended audience. You can advertise other content through your posts in addition to posting organic content on each site.
Everyone wants their material to be seen by others, and social media is a fantastic tool for doing this. 9,729 tweets are actually sent every second. In addition, it is projected that each day there are 5.6 billion Google searches. As previously said, social media updates like tweets have the potential to rank on Google, giving your material a lot more opportunities to be seen by the proper audience.
Even integrations exist that let you simultaneously publish the same content to several platforms. For instance, while Instagram is publishing your content, you can post on Facebook. You can share information both ways since Facebook is presently testing a new cross-posting feature to Instagram. You can quickly expand your audience by simply flipping a switch in your share settings.
Advice: You can schedule your social media material in advance by using a social media calendar. When it's time to publish, you can then just relax and let the platforms do everything. On each platform, you'll be able to connect with various audiences and significantly increase your reach.
15. Helps You Stay Current With Industry News
Social networking has already proven to be a useful tool for connecting with possible business partners and collaborators in your field. Additionally, by keeping an eye on your rivals and other companies in your sector, you might learn about any novel endeavors they are undertaking.
Social media, technology, and marketing strategies are all constantly changing. You'll want to learn about any significant changes in your industry and try to determine the cause. Being afloat in a cutthroat market requires staying current on news that could influence you and your business.
Google, for instance, updates its algorithm rather frequently. If you want to be aware of how it operates so you can understand how the modifications will impact it, You could wish to follow them on Twitter if it will affect your SEO. By doing so, you can keep up with news that is relevant to your industry.
Advice: When learning about developments in the industry, you should consider how they can influence you and your business. With the help of social media, you may get a consistent stream of information that you can use to assess how your business is doing and determine whether you need to change your approach.
16. Social Proof Can Improve Content Performance
Compare your website to a dining establishment. Consider yourself browsing the neighborhood for a restaurant. One eatery is deserted, and another is crowded. Most likely, you would select the busy restaurant. People travel there because it has so much fantastic food. For your website, the same is true.
Nobody wants to access stuff that is irrelevant to anyone else. They are looking for the one that is popular and getting plenty of shares. Its content must be worth obtaining many shares, of course. The most popular material must either be authoritative or innovative and unique.
Check out the performance of Woorank's Google Core Web Vitals blog article. You can view the number of times and the platform on which a piece of content was shared by hovering your cursor over the plus sign. If a lot of individuals are sharing this content, other people may be persuaded to do the same on social media.
Advice: You can add buttons to your blog and website to show how many people have shared your material. These buttons make sharing simple and convenient.
17. Provides Outlets to Share Company News and Updates
Similarly to keeping up on industry news, social media is one of the finest and easiest ways of keeping your customers updated with your news. It will go viral and thrill people if your company makes a big announcement about a new product or exciting event.
Many individuals began discussing e.l.f. Cosmetics and Skincare's announcement that they had expanded the areas in which they sent their products. They earned nearly 5,000 likes and more than 200 comments on this single Instagram post.
What sort of news should you convey, then?
- newest goods
- new offerings
- fresh updates
- new additions
18. Social Media Can Help Establish You As a Thought Leader
Everyone aspires to have a leadership role. When consumers have questions, you want them to turn to you and your material first. So how can you distinguish yourself from the other business experts in your field? Social media can be useful here.
You can communicate with a staggering number of individuals thanks to social media. Since your potential audience is very large, the first step is to identify your target audience. Then, you should produce content that speaks to them. You can connect with your fans on social media, which not only gives you the chance to share engaging information, but also creates new opportunities for interaction. If you establish a rapport with them, they'll be more likely to contact you again.if they have a query regarding your sector.
Seth Godin, for instance, utilizes Instagram to engage with individuals and promote marketing-related conversations. When they have inquiries regarding a pertinent subject, marketers turn to him and his blog. He connects with people that follow him on social media through these platforms.
Advice: Becoming a thought leader for your business takes time. It will take some time to establish yourself as the go-to source for inquiries from others. Start by speculating about the thought leaders you perceive. Ask the likes of, "Where do I turn for answers?" "Who do other people in my field look to?" How can I market myself the same way they do? Then, gradually apply what you've learned to establish connections and spark conversation among your followers.
19. Can Help You Identify Trends in Consumer Behavior and Opinions
Consumer behavior can be influenced by social media. It's crucial to comprehend how big of an impact it has. Social media can also provide you with important information about your customers' purchasing processes and general opinions of emerging trends. How can you figure out what these tendencies are? Hello again, social listening.
You may learn what aspects of your strategy are effective and what the user pain points are by listening to what customers are saying about your brand or products. You can better market to your customers by knowing what values they hold dear. People may now express their opinions on products, politics, the news, and other topics that are currently hot thanks to social media sites. In fact, Twitter has a "What's happening page “ Your homepage should have a "What's Happening" section so you can see what users are saying about the hottest trends.
A social media listening tool called TweetDeck lets you search for subjects on Twitter to see what people are saying about them. You can use this tool to check what customers are saying about you, your rivals, and any other keywords you might be interested in learning more about.
20. Can Help You Do Competitor Research
The majority of people use social media. There are at least 4.48 billion individuals on the planet, including your competitors. That's not always a negative thing for you because you can keep an eye on their social media to gain some fairly important insights.
Finding out who your competitors are and what their social media strategy is should be your first step. You may accomplish this by closely monitoring their social media accounts and examining the stuff that they post. You can even utilize various analytical tools to compare yourself to your rivals.
Naturally, you can see how many likes each post receives, but if you want to learn more about how you stack up against your rivals, you can use to view activity and engagement rates, use apps like Rival IQ.
Advice: If you don't use the information you discover to improve your own business, doing the research is a waste of time. Ask them, "How do they deal with these issues?" "How are the numbers for our competitors?" "How do they stack up against us?" Keep track of how other people are running their campaigns, and make notes on how you might improve.
