Social media is a key part of digital marketing, allowing marketers to utilise the many benefits that allow businesses to reach millions of customers, anywhere in the world. If you do not use social media as a marketing source, then you are massively missing out on a great marketing opportunity that makes it easy and free to spread the word about your business.
Increased brand awareness
With nearly half of the world’s population using social media on a daily basis, it’s a great way to reach new customers that are specific to you. If social media users don’t know about your business, then they cannot become your customer. Start by choosing which channels suit you and your business best depending on whether you are B2B or B2C; depending on your business sector and market, it might be that some social platforms are better suited than others.
Consider adding images, gifs and good content to encourage people to engage and share your posts, ultimately building a bigger social media presence for your business.
Increased website traffic
Posts on social media are a crucial way to encourage people to visit your website and increase traffic. Sharing content directly from your site on to your social channels gets users to enter the website and hopefully go further. Different types of content could include blogs, opinion pieces and information pages from your site. If people like the content, they may share it further which allows more people to see the post with the direct link to your site.
Engage with customers
It is key for a business to humanise themselves and make their social media platform relatable to the everyday social media user. It is a great way to relax on the formality of marketing and make it more friendly and fun.
This more often than not lead to users engaging with your posts by leaving comments, liking posts or saving them for future reference. Answering any comments quickly and in a friendly manner allows you to connect with users and communicate directly unlike one-way traditional marketing. If you want users to be engaged, you have to stay active and respond to comments and questions on your own social media posts, staying close to your brand.
Cost-effective
Out of all marketing strategies, social media marketing is perhaps the most cost-effective way to increase brand awareness and market your products/services. Signing up and creating an account is free on most social media platforms, although it can be time-consuming so does come with its own costs. Social media platforms do offer targeted advertising options that you can deploy, similar to PPC. Being cost-effective in your marketing is important as it helps you gain a bigger return on investment whilst keeping larger budgets to invest in other parts of the business.
Customer support
There are many users turning to social media for answers and customer support. You can offer your support on products/services through private message or directly in comments so others can see. Responding to customers on social media with effective and quick replies can give you a good online reputation that reflects your business.
Monitor the competition
On some social media platforms, you can track mentions of your competitors to see what is being said about them, good or bad. By doing this you can adapt your own social media marketing techniques to give the customer what they want and remove aspects that they don’t enjoy as much. This will allow you to win over customers from your competitors.
Final Thoughts
Creating and maintaining your social media platforms is highly beneficial to your business but it can take a lot of time and manpower, so it is crucial to stay on top of your game. If you begin to fail with uploading consistently, users may unfollow and lose interest in your business.
For a no-obligation chat to see what social media services we could offer you and a detailed example work plan, get in touch with us today at hello@seriouslyhelpful.co.uk
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