As a business owner, you have at one time considered using social media to market your business. More than 3 billion people around the world are using social media platforms to communicate, engage with brands, and make purchasing decisions and much more. You need to take advantage of this effective and affordable digital marketing tool to reach the world population with your products or services. Although sometimes it can be difficult to provide proof of a direct ROI, there are many tangible benefits that come with using social media. Social media has a competitive space where many businesses are competing to gain the limited attention of the consumer. If executed properly, social media will help your business grow with limited financial investment.
Increase brand awareness
Having a good social media presence will help in building your professional business reputation. Social media networks like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube will help you reach more markets. A social media strategy will go a long way in increasing your brand recognition by interacting with a wider consumer audience. You can have your employees, friends, partners like and share your page. Get to interact with different people with every post which can lead them to be potential customers.This will increase brand awareness and build your business reputation. Social media can make your brand noticed faster and easier and get people curious about your brand. A social media page with a well-written profile, clear cover photo, and a strategically placed logo will benefit your brand.
Social media is cost effective
Social media platforms have the most cost-effective advertising methods where you just sign up and create your profile for free and freely advertise your business. However, if you want to have a wider customer reach you can pay a small fee for ads to help your business grow. Instagram has a massive target audience that you can reach with your brand and the only way to do that is if your business is popular. Automatic monthly Instagram likes will give you leverage over your competitors.You can post relevant and attractive content that will engage Instagram users whofollow your page and earn you thousands of likes and followers to make your business become visible.
You can also post your business story, photos or videos on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter to share and engage with potential customers who are interested in what you have to offer. With social media you don’t spend a lot on advertising however, you invest heavily in time to run, manage, and monitor the social media feeds. It takes a lot of time to manage your social media profiles depending on the size and the kind of business you’re running. However, with the right team and processes, you can be very productive.
Improve SEO rankings
Social media posts might attract some site traffic to your business but you need more than that to be successful. Your business page needs search engine optimization to get higher page rankings and traffic. To increase website traffic you can create great content in your posts that you can share with your readers through your page and social media channels. This way you increase your business visibility, get potential customers, display your expertise, and drive traffic to your page. If you have great content on your blog or website, users will visit your page multiple times to read your blog which will reflect positively on your search rankings.
Better customer service
Providing your customers with excellent customer service is important to keep your followers happy. On social media, consumers want to have one-on-one communication with you instead of a robot. When you personalize your reply to your customer’s comments on your page, the customer feels appreciated and valued. This will make them loyal customers who will also recommend your business to their friends. Using interpersonal dialogue when handling every question or complaint that appears on your page will show your compassion to your customers. This will reflect positively on your brand.
Have access to competitor research
It’s easy to keep tabs on your competition on social media. You can monitor what people are saying about your competition to see if you can address some of their complaints in the process winning over new customers. You can also check to see how your competitors interact with their customers, their response period on queries, the content in their posts, how often they post, and other important aspects that will help you be better than your competitors. Social media makes it easy to gain vital information on ways that will make you unique in your niche.
Encourages a two-way conversation
Social media makes it possible for you to have a conversation with your audience and know their interests and get feedback. You can ask your customers questions, share their thoughts on a particular topic or their ideas and just have a one-on-one conversation without having to make any calls. Social media will also help you monitor and control the direction of the conversations, to a degree, concerning your brand. You can interact with your customers and prospects on many social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
Improve brand and customer loyalty
Building a strong loyal customer base is the goal of every business. Cultivating and maintaining a bond with your customers helps in keeping them happy which means they will be loyal to your business. Customers want to interact with your brand and communicate directly with you. The millennials are the most brand loyal customers. Customers who follow your business most likely means they are loyal customers and they will drive traffic to your page. To keep your loyal customers happy and engaged you can offer them discounts or inexpensive giveaways to show them your appreciation.
Conclusion
As you can see social media has a lot to offer your business. So if you haven’t started using social media to expand your brand or reduce your advertising costs, then now is the time to start. Social media is time-consuming and at times frustrating but the huge return is worth it.