It’s easy to employ the magic of social media for your business. Remember the days of outrageously expensive newspaper and television ads? The endless printing of flyers and brochures? We’re lucky to live in the age of internet freedom, where, for now, we can promote our brand to the world for minimal expense.
Social media marketing offers a level playing field for every kind of business, big and small. On the whole, it’s free, widely accessible and enjoyed by billions worldwide. So let’s explore WHY social media marketing is so important and HOW you can leverage it to your advantage.
Why Social Media Marketing is Important and How You Can Leverage it to Your Advantage
Over the course of the pandemic millions of businesses were forced to conduct their affairs virtually. Social media acted as the hinge upon which we pivoted our marketing, supporting current customers, seeking out new ones, and keeping everyone updated on new products and services. Without the vast pull of social media, many enterprises would have failed.
Businesses that hadn’t harnessed social media marketing quickly rethought their digital marketing strategy, recognising how crucial these familiar platforms were to their future success.
Depending on your business aims and objectives, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and Youtube could help you engage and connect with people all around the world. We recommend doing your research first before embarking on your social media journey; there’s no point in setting up accounts on every platform because very few brands are suited to every single platform.
Browsers are more likely to learn about new brands on social media than anywhere else. They’re also more likely to directly engage with brands on social media because it’s easier and faster than any other method. If you want to attract and retain loyal customers, build responsive customer service into your marketing strategy.
Storytelling
Social media is all about storytelling. It’s how we connect with other humans and without it, your business is just a series of dull product specifications. With a little planning, you can reach your target audience and build brand awareness using the power of human experience.
By using your chosen social media channels to tell the story of your brand, you’re building relationships with your followers and generating conversations. Remember to build your brand’s tone of voice into your content and keep it consistent; if you chop and change the language you use, browsers will see through your efforts and quickly lose faith in your brand.
Authenticity
Social media marketing is great for building trust with potential customers. Even better, your followers can do it for you by commenting on and sharing your content. This style of cross-promotion is utterly authentic as it comes from a place of trust.
Browsers won’t fall for insincere, pushy content. They’ll relate to fun, entertaining content that’s consistent with your brand values and ethos; resist constant selling as it’ll get very tiring, very quickly.
Listen to what your followers have to say. Some businesses are guilty of placing all of their focus on content creation, with scant thought given to comments, complaints, likes and shares. This information is crucial to the future direction of your social media strategy; if engagement drops off, if you forget to respond to comments and questions, your followers will move elsewhere.
Growth
An unbelievable portion of the planet’s population uses social media; nearly 5 billion, in fact. This offers an incredible window of opportunity for brand growth and we can’t recommend a smart social media marketing strategy highly enough. Use social media platforms to your advantage. How? Start with social listening, a way to tap into what people are talking about online. You can monitor how and when they talk about your business and your competitors. Do this by observing your social media channels for mentions of your brand, certain keywords, topics and customer feedback. Harnessing and analysing this data can help you reach more people.
Keeping up with Trends
As well as directly engaging with people using creative content, there are other ways you can use social media to your advantage. Constantly updating in real time, there’s no better way to keep up with current trends than by popping onto Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok. If you’re a B2B (Business to Business) brand, LinkedIn hashtags are a useful way to hop into conversations about what’s hot in the world of business. This knowledge could have a huge effect on future brand strategy, so it pays to scroll a little from time to time.
Direct Selling
Rather than employing multiple methods to direct people to buy from your website, go to where the people already are. The average user spends 2.5 hours on social media every day; that’s ample opportunity for you to nab their attention.
With this in mind, why not make it easy for people to buy straight from your social media account? Shoppable posts allow your brand to tag products that will take browsers directly to the product page on your website. The fewer steps from ‘interest to purchase’ there are, the better.
Paid ad campaigns are another fantastic way to build traffic. While organic content should be your main priority, it can take a while to build momentum. With paid adverts and sponsored posts, you can design your perfect sub-audience and communicate directly with them for a set fee. Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is where you pay the platform according to how many times your advert is clicked. It’s growing in popularity as it allows for very targeted advertising and offers straightforward analytics.
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In this day and age, you can’t afford to bypass social media; it’s a conduit to millions of people, it’s free and it’s easy to use. With a little effort and finesse, you can easily increase sales and boost your brand profile.
If you need support with your social media marketing, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. Learn more about our Digital Marketing services here.