Social media marketing is growing rapidly. It is no longer a choice for brands to use social media, it is now necessary. You will be doing your business a huge disservice by not investing the time and money into social media, and we can tell you why.
Social Proof
As a millennial myself, I know for a fact I go straight to social media to search a brand and see if they are a legitimate business. This is a quick way to see what other people are saying about the brand, see if they have a loyal customer base and if they feel trustworthy. Without a social media presence, you are missing out on this opportunity to prove your business as trusted, successful, and approachable. This is a missed opportunity to showcase customer success stories and develop brand awareness.
Search Engine Visibility
You may be thinking, my customer base is not predominantly millennial’s, they won’t be looking for my business via social media. Well, having a social media presence also helps with your SEO. Search engine optimisation will favour social media sites results if the user frequents these sites, therefore is a simple way of boosting you above a competitor on the search results!
Show Authenticity
Social Media is the perfect platform to showcase your brand authenticity. Finding the right tone is becoming increasingly important to stand out from the crowd, and build loyal followers. Whether this is professional and caring or funny and witty. Take Pizza Hut and Dominos, for example, they have taken the humour route which has resulted in a heap of retweets and brand hype! It’s about being authentic to yourself, and to your brand. Funny and witty may not be the correct route for an accounting firm, you could instead be informative and caring… but this is for you to discover, and make it unique to your own business.
Boost Sales
As much as social media was originally designed to communicate with friends and switch off, it has become a valuable marketing tool for businesses. You don’t want to come off too sales-y on your Social Media platforms, however, there is the added benefit of affordable advertising and social-commerce by linking products in images and ads to shop instantly! At the end of the day, Social Media is an integral component of your sales funnel.
Targeted Advertising
Traditional forms of advertising go out to the masses and can be quite costly. The joys of social media ads are you can hone in on your target demographic, and just advertise to that select group of people. Therefore not wasting your time and money on advertising to people that will not likely result in a sale. For example, if you are selling a luxury house, you could look to exclude people that have just purchased a home or are under the age of 16.
Communicate with Customers
Traditional media forms only offer one-way communication. The joys of social media are your customers can reach out directly to you and you can respond! Whether this is to quickly resolve issues they are having, or to give some feedback or praise. Another advantage of social media is ‘social-listening’, you can gauge very quickly how your consumers are responding to your product by tuning in to what is being said online.
Conclusion
Whether it is to build brand awareness and trust or push your point of difference Social Media has proven to be an important business tool. The future is online, and we are only going to see advancements in the social media realm. Jump onto it now or get left behind by your competitors.
How has Social Media proven to be a useful business tool for you? Tell us in the comments below!
