Why Every Business Should Use Social Media

Getting Social: The Selling Point of Social Media

   

Social media is the most life-changing form of communication since E-mail. It is a powerful source of media that is changing how we interact with each other, how we see the world, and how we do business. A Balihoo study shows that 91% of people use Facebook to find places, products and services. Social media is the new phone book, don’t you want your business to be in it? Social media benefits the consumer and the marketer. It is the perfect way to achieve brand recognition. Every opportunity you have to syndicate your content, increases your visibility and its value. Social media networks are new, free channels for the voice of your brand and it's content.

Free Marketing Space

While there is paid social media, and this can be effective, you can also access many social media platforms for free. For example, why wouldn’t you create a promotional page for your company on the second most popular website (Facebook) that has 1.49 billion monthly active uses this year? Why wouldn’t you get a twitter account? Both of these moves put you in the forefront of your community. Enabling you to post content that benefits your brand and audience. Current Marketing isn’t about selling products, it is about telling stories and creating authentic relationships. Social media helps you to build these relationships by interacting with your audience. The more you invest in these relationships, the more you will get out of them. Word-of-mouth is one of the most effective marketing tools, and social media provides you with a platform to exercises influencers and be an influencer. Meaning you can show support for other companies, and they can do the same. Or people who admire your brand can directly shout you out on social media. The ability to influence is imperative at this stage.

Gain Influencers: what are Influencers?

Influencers are people who are considered experts to their audiences, audiences which can be large, or small – the key is that the person posting has social influence of some regard. People trust the real word of everyday consumers, more than they trust ads, which is why influencers can help to promote your brand through the use of word-of-mouth, social media marketing—influencer marketing. You can pay people to influence for you, or you can reward them, endorse them with product, or offer to shout them out and their services. For example, if you use a blogger, you can shout out that person’s blog on your social media platforms. Social media helps you locate influencers and engage with them in real time. Discover brand advocates and let them help you build your community. Keep in mind that 70% of consumers who experience an effective brand response on social media are more likely to recommend that brand to others.

The world of Social Media: learn and connect 

Social media connects you with other people who are just as passionate about a certain industry. According to Spredfast, 52% of enterprise brands say that social media is the top driver for growing relationships and building brand engagement. In trying to build your brand, it does help to learn from other people in your industry, hear what they are saying and what they are doing. Monitor your competition, understand your detractors and see what’s working in your marketing. Check out your competitors, see what they are posting and be aware of what is out there. Social media is a great opportunity to see what everyone is doing. It is a great way to make connections all over the world.

You employees and coworkers have an average of 111 friends on Facebook and 25 followers, now you can reach an exceptionally wider audience without any additional costs. Now you have a platform to tell your story. Instagram has more than 200 million active users, and Youtube is the more impressionable network for ages 18-34 years old. Through targeted, one-on-one conversations, you can make your customer part of your story and create a community around your brand.

Find Your Audience

It is very important to find your target audience, and any successful business has learned to know their audiences well. Using tools like analytics can help understand the dominate demographics and patterns of your customer behaviors. Social media not only lets you target your audience better, it also provides you with the specific needs of your customer base. You can measure content, and this lets you see what is working and what is not. You will learn quickly what your audience would like to see more of, and these analytics help you provide it. Social media gives you the platform and opportunity to connect with individuals who are important to your customer service and brand strategy. Having those connections at your immediate disposal can be very helpful. It is important to make connections personal. Write back to comments, follow fans, and like their photos and photos of similar businesses. It is good to make it personal. Studies have proven that brands who engage on social media channels experience a higher loyalty from their customers. 

See Yourself Grow

Figuratively, brands become more humanized by engaging with social media channels. Here, brands can act like people do. People like doing business with other people, not companies. Through social media, you can increase your website traffic. For example, the more social media shares you get, the higher your search ranking will be. If a lot of people Retweet your post it is more likely to run higher in Google search engine result pages. Increase your website traffic – the more social media shares you get, the higher your search ranking will be.

If used properly, social media will make it easier for potential customers to find you. Whether it’s gaining more followers or increasing customer engagement, businesses around the globe are finding ways to how social media is contributing to their success and growth.

If you’re feeling limited in terms of audience, social media is an excellent way to expand your horizons. Using tools like “geo search in Hootsuite” are great for searching hashtags, which people in your neighbourhood are using—this works great with tools like Twitter.

Adding value to your online audiences is easy with social media, which allows you to engage and nurture existing fans, while expanding to new audiences.

Improve Your Customer Service Strategy

Interacting with customers regularly is a sign of good faith for other customers. Social media works in real-time and it provides you with instant commentary from your customers. This is highly valuable insight. It can help everything from new product growth to customer retention. Social media is where people are going to compliment or brag about a brand.

There are a lot of things you can do to interact with your customer and improve customer services. Aside from commenting on photos, following people and liking photos, you can also ask questions on your platforms, which engage users. You can start twitter chats, which are successfully demonstrated by companies like T-Mobile and Hootsuite. You can also do give-aways, draws and contests on your feed. You can find ways to involve customers in your social media: engagement is key.

Social media provides for a richer customer experience, it opens up a line of communication. Social media interaction with customers improves customer insight. You can utilize the skill of social listening and find out what your customers are interested in, and what they would like to see less of. Remember, your competition is likely already involved, don’t let them reap the benefits – get social. 

Increase Leads and Traffic

There are many encouraging statistics which support the concept that effective social media brings leads and traffic.  According to Linkedin, 82% of people report that social media is helpful for lead generation. 77% of b2C and 43% of b2b companies say they’ve acquired customers through Facebook, and 68% of consumers check out companies online before buying. Meaning that your social media, in many rights, is your online catalogue, it’s the medium people are using to check you out before they affiliate with you in any regard. Social media is the new phonebook. Hubspot reports that 92% of marketers (2014) said that their social media marketing was vital to their business. Social media platforms all call attention to your website, 80% of people quoted that their social media efforts increased traffic to their website.

Remember that every created post on social media is an opportunity to convert, and “opportunity” is the first element of any action. Social media profiles create another path back to every website and every amount of content you syndicate to those social media profiles is another chance for a new visitor.

Keep in mind that the content you post will have a huge influence. Aim to post quality content. Quality content = more inbound traffic = more conversions and leads.

Google and other search engines might be calculating their rankings using social media, and because of this, most strong brands use social media. Showing activity on social media can act as a “brand signal” to search engines deeming that your brand is credible, trustworthy, and legitimate. 

You have to have a dominate social media presence. Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate that outbound marketing. A higher number of social media followers can improve trust and credibility in your brand. Building your audience can improve conversion rates on existing traffic.

Social media generates leads for one third of the cost—for example, a social media campaign can increase reach and fuel demand generation. Social media is great for generating leads with gated content. 85% of consumers say they will change their shopping behaviour in response to social media content, “conversations and relationships are currency, it’s time to start cashing in.”

Social networking is the most popular online activity, why wouldn’t you take part in this? According to iMedia 70% of marketers say social media marketing has increased their brand awareness. Increase your brand awareness, grow your audience and communicate with customers affectively. Social Media allows for real-time connections, which is highly beneficial towards creating authentic relationships. Time is of the essence, and the longer you wait, the more you have to lose. Social Media is about building relationships, and you have to start this process now. 

Remember that if social media marketing is executed properly that it will lead to more customers, more traffic and more conversions.

Looking for an exceptional social media consult? Someone who can get you started and has the results to prove she's a success at this? I can guarantee results. Contact me, Tara Chloe Dusanj @ tarachloe3@gmail.com or 604-764-2669.