Over the last couple of decades, social media has had a major impact on the way we live our lives. It has gradually become an important part of digital marketing, which allows businesses to reach new and existing customers all over the globe.
Many businesses who do not apply this profitable source often suffer. Most businesses need to adapt to modern technology to be successful, and social media can be used as a fantastic marketing opportunity. Never before in history has it been this easy to spread the word about what your business is all about.
Currently, Facebook, which is the world’s largest social media platform has over 2.4 billion users. With only 7.7 billion people living on this planet, the thought that this many people have created a Facebook account is incredible. For businesses reluctant to use social media to market their products they could be missing out on a lot of new customers.
Businesses use Social Media Platforms to Improve Brand Awareness
Making sure your business is visible is very important. If people can’t find you or they don’t know what products or services you sell, then how do you expect it to grow? Branding is a vital part of business, and social media gives businesses the chance to grow their brand awareness easily. Unlike other forms of advertising, promoting a brand on social media is stress-free and it can prove extremely profitable.
All one has to do is create a social media profile for their business or product they are selling, and start networking with other people on the platform. A good social media strategy can help boost your brand recognition. Over 90% of marketers claim that social media is one of the best ways to increase the visibility of a brand. They recommended marketers or business owners should spend a few hours a week checking and updating their social media pages.
Marketing on Social Media is Cost-Effective
Hiring a digital marketing company can cost businesses a fortune. Marketing a business on social media is not only a fantastic opportunity to find new customers and it won’t break the bank to get your business a social media profile. Because most social media platforms allow you to create a profile completely for free it makes it one of the most cost-effective ways of digitally advertising your business.
Plus, if you want to go the extra mile and start paying one of these social media platforms to start advertising your page or website, there are plenty of affordable options available. You don’t need a big advertising budget to get your business noticed on social media. If you do decide to start paying one of these platforms to advertise your company, consider starting small. Some businesses have great success by paying very little.
Social Media Platforms can help Create a Specific Target Audience
Advertisers and social media platforms have a strong and healthy relationship. Advertisers use these platforms to raise awareness about the products they have for sale or the services their companies provide. Most platforms need advertisers to spend money to fund them. There are several ways social media platforms help advertisers attract new customers to their page. One of these methods is by targeting certain members on social media who they feel are ideal customers for the products or services the company is advertising. Because advertising on social media is highly customized, it makes advertising on these platforms an exciting option.
Social media platforms like Facebook can give you plenty of data to help you understand how your different advertising campaigns are working. Facebook Analytics is key in helping advertisers understand who is visiting your company’s profile, how long they stay on your page, and how many clicks you get each day. You can see how well each campaign is performing by how many times it has been shared, how people have reacted by reading the comments, and how many people have hit the like button.
Social Media Marketing can Help Boost Sales
The most important part of running a business is generating sales, and business owners and staff members often work long hours each day making sure their company is profitable. Successful businesses adapt to change and they are constantly on the lookout for new methods of increasing their company’s sales. Advertising campaigns aim to increase sales of a product or service, and social media platforms have proved to be an extremely successful sales channel for lots of brands.
Recent studies carried out showed the over 60 percent of socially engaged organizations claimed positive growth.
Social Media allows Businesses to Engage with Your Customers
The majority of business owners will tell you the most important side to their business is their customers. Social media gives businesses the chance to easily engage with their customers. Interacting with customers is a great way to understand your business and to help it to grow. The more a business interacts with an audience, the better chance the business has of conversion. Encouraging your visitors to interact with you on social media is a great way to promote your product or service. Social media can be used to create a good relationship between you and your target audience.
Having a strong social media presence allows customers to easily find you and gives them the opportunity to make contact with you. Social media can be used to retain existing customers. Every business wants to create a loyal customer base, and engaging with them on social media is a great way of achieving this. Communicating with customers on social media allows you to develop a bond.
If there are any changes or updates to your products or services, social media can be used to get the word out.
Customer Satisfaction
If a customer has a problem with a product or service, communicating with them on social media can help rectify it. Engaging with them gives businesses the chance to fix any issue their customer has before their business gets a bad reputation. In marketing, it is believed that if a customer is happy with a product or a service they will tell 5 people, however, if they are not satisfied they will tell 50 people. Word of mouth, especially on social media can go a long way and most businesses understand how powerful it is.
Social media has given businesses a voice which can be used to keep their customers happy and improve their overall brand image. Most of the time, the customer appreciates when the business makes time to interact with them. Replying to their private messages and to their comments that they have posted will not only help you understand your products and services better, but it will also provide good customer service. Whether the brand is big or small, if they go out of their way to engage with their customers it will give the business a good chance of growing.
Social Media can Help Advertise your Businesses Website
Increasing the number of visitors a website gets can prove tricky. However, many businesses have had great success boosting the number of visitors their site gets due to advertising it on social media platforms. By producing content on their social media profile with links that direct people to their website is a great way of increasing traffic. The better the content on their social media page, the better chance they have of promoting their website.
Social media can help improve a business’s website ranking on major search engines. Nowadays, most business owners are fully aware of the importance of where their site is ranked on search engines like Google, and having a strong social media presence is becoming very important in the way these search engines calculate rankings. Although optimizing a website and updating information on the site will help how a site is ranked, creating good content on your social media page is also very important.
Conclusion
In the past, finding out what the customer really wants was very difficult. By keeping an eye on the activities on your profile, allows you to see what your customers are interested in and what their opinions are can help improve your business. Without having a social media presence you might miss out on some of this very important and useful information. Social media can be used as a tool to understand your customers and the way the industry is going.
Many businesses that fail to adapt to change fall behind. Whether we like it or not, social media is a big part of most of our lives, and it doesn’t seem like that is going to change in the near future. Although most platforms are making alterations to improve their service, the concept stays the same.
Whether your brand is big or small, if it has been established for many years or it is a brand new company, advertising it on social media has many advantages. Communicating with new and existing customers has never been easier. Your competitors are more than likely using social media to their benefit, so it is important not to fall behind.