Did you know that 90% of all marketers say social media marketing has increased their business exposure? Additionally, 66% of marketers that spend at least 6 hours on social per week have seen more leads. No matter what you sell or who you sell it to, using social media as a marketing tool can help you grow your business.
If you’re a business owner, chances are you’ve already considered using social media marketing to help get the word out about your business. Some of you are still digging your heels in and saying “do I really need it?”
Yes. Yes you do — and here are some of the top reasons why:
1. An active social media presence builds relationships with your audience and helps you understand them.
Consumers see Facebook and Instagram as social networks, not marketing machines. That can be a challenge when you’re first developing your social media marketing strategy. A lot of companies instinctively take a hard sell approach, flooding their followers with discount offer codes, new product announcements and customer reviews. Then, when the account only brings in minimal traffic gains, they assume social media marketing isn’t a good fit for them. Customers don’t want to be pitched to — they want authentic engagement. When you stop seeing social media as a way to pitch to your customers and start seeing it as a way to connect with them, it can transform your brand. You help customers by answering their questions, entertaining and informing them with relevant content and even forming bonds over shared interests.
One of the most significant benefits of Facebook and Instagram marketing is the interaction you have with your customer base. When reading what they posts you’ll gain insights into their daily lives and consumer behaviors, and answer questions such as:
- What types of products and services are they buying and why?
- What content do they love to share?
- What websites do they like to visit?
- What types of hobbies do they have?
When you understand your customers, you can create better content and more compelling posts for your audience, which leads to more traffic.
2. Using social media for business boosts your sites SEO rankings.
Search engines know which pages are consistently earning traffic and which are just drifting out there, buried and ignored. Although your awesome content strategy is the most important factor in your search rankings, driving traffic to your optimized pages will cause them to climb much faster.
3. Your competition is already on social media.
91% of retail brands are using at least two social media platforms. So, what hope do you have of getting your brand noticed on Facebook or Instagram?
Most brands are not employing an effective social media marketing strategy. Here is what happens. A lot of companies start a few social media channels because it’s low cost, and it’s what everyone else is doing. They post infrequently, lack engagement with followers and don’t develop a knowledgable voice or story. Social media remains a way for them to throw out ads at customers sporadically. When that strategy doesn’t produce results, they often abandon social media altogether.
If you take the time to develop your voice, story and strategy, post regularly and respond to messages and comments promptly, you can build a following your inactive competitors can’t match — even if they’ve been on social media way longer than you have.
4. A strong social media presence builds brand loyalty.
A report published by Texas Tech University found that brands with active social media profiles have more loyal customers. There is a huge competitive market in the digital marketing era, and it is not enough to only have high-quality products, but customers want to feel like they have a connection with the brand. You’re taking the time to provide your followers with useful information, help and entertainment, without asking for anything in return. In a competitive market, that can make a huge difference.
5. Social media ads allow targeting and retargeting.
Social media also allows you to retarget you ads which can be customized around your customers’ needs. Facebook ads, for example, can target customers by factors like age, location, education level, industry and even user behavior — e.g. the pages a user has liked. Social media also allows you to do retargeting of your ads. Retargeting is a form of targeting online advertising to reach people who have already visited a website or are already in a database as a lead or customer. Retargeting ads reach people based on their previous internet actions.
How often are you seeing current or potential customers coming to your site but then not taking any action? They simply poke around your pages a bit and then leave without giving you a new conversion. How can you get that customer back to your page to actually go through with the action you’d ideally like them to take? Welcome to the world of retargeting.
6. Social media marketing establishes you as a thought leader in your industry.
By answering questions, giving advice and sharing relevant information, you can establish your brand as a thought leader in the industry.
Whether you focus on just one network—such as Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn—or you spend time on all of them, you have an incredible opportunity to reach a huge audience. Share links to your blog posts, share news, share tips, post opinions, and ask questions. Let your followers know you’re paying attention and that you appreciate them.
If you use social media regularly, it can greatly increase your brand’s reach. Your answers to common questions will come up in Google search, as well as in particular social channels. Other users will start to share to your posts or refer friends and colleagues to your social media team when they have questions. New leads, impressed with your helpful information, will be more likely to visit your site and purchase your products.
All without ever asking anyone to buy!
7. The ROI on social media ads is unbeatable.
By running the right ads or boosting posts, you can bring in a lot of traffic at a fraction of the cost of targeted Google ads.
As of 2018, the average Google AdWords cost per click varied from $1.20 for travel and tourism, to $5.27 for education and employment. Depending on the keyword targeted, you can end up paying $50 or more for a single click. Cost per acquisition, the amount of money businesses spend on ads to acquire a single customer, varies even more, from less than $20, to over $200 for the legal industry.
With targeted ads and boosted posts, you have a lot more control over when and where your message gets amplified, which means you can spend your advertising budget more strategically by focusing on the posts that matter most to your audience.
Conclusion
There is no denying that social media marketing has many advantages for startups and established brands. By staying consistent and present with your social media strategies, you increase traffic, rank better in SEO, improve brand loyalty, and much more. Your competition is already on social media everyday, so don’t let them take your potential customers. According to the Pew Research Center, 65 percent of American adults use social networks, which means that social media will touch nearly every customer that you come in contact with.
The earlier you start, the faster you will see the growth in your business. You owe it to yourself to compete everyday. Please contact me to win and get inspired. I want to meet you!
