Social Media Marketing is hugely beneficial to businesses no matter what size you are. A lot of smaller companies tend to shy away from it. Social media marketing requires both creativity and a strategy, and it can seem overwhelming if you haven’t used it before. Your audience is more than likely on social media, and you should be taking every step to target them. A lot of sales are made from seeing a product or service on social media.
So many businesses are not aware of the benefits of social media marketing and don’t use it at all. We feel that every business should be on social media, big and small. Many businesses will be unsure of what to post.
Brand Awareness
The main reason you should be using social media for your business is to increase your trustworthiness and build brand awareness. Customers will not buy from you the first time they see you, and they usually have to come across you seven times to make a purchase. Many shoppers now believe in brand loyalty, and people will even fight for their brand over another.
Social media gets your business in front of users much more quickly than traditional media. People may come across your tweet or Tiktok and not think much about it, but it all builds up a perception of your brand. The better perception they have of your brand, the more likely they are to make a purchase.
You should have your brand logo and brand colours the same across all social media, and this will help reinforce your brand to your audience.
Inbound traffic
If you don’t market your business on social media, then more than likely, your business will be limited to your usual customers. People who know your brand are likely to be searching for the keywords you already are ranking for. If you aren’t using social media, then you’ll be only reaching people inside your loyal customer circle unless you pay for ads.
Increase Customer Satisfaction
A significant advantage of social media marketing is that it provides brands with a direct line to their audience. This opens the room for interactions with your customers. It can have both positive and negative sides to it.
Brands can use social media to listen to their audience and provide real-time feedback. A lot of brands use Twitter to reply publicly to their queries or problems, and one brand that does this is Three Ireland. They have a separate Twitter account dedicated to answering their customers’ questions and complaints. It gives their users a quick way to get a response. As you can see below they reply to tweets both good and bad. They can then message them privately to find a solution.
Hey Moira ? Pop me a DM with your details and I can answer any questions you have relating to this. Ruth https://t.co/6KqKiFhQii
— Three Ireland Care (@ThreeCare) December 1, 2021
Tell Your Brand Story
Social media is a fantastic way to share your brand’s story and what you believe in, and it can have significant benefits to your brand’s image. This involves you telling your unique brand story through different social platforms. You should research the best way to tell your brand story that your company is familiar with.
To do this, you must also know your audience. Creating user personas is a great way to understand your audience. Creating customer personas will help you understand your audience’s needs, hopes and wants. This will help your brand emotionally connect with your customers.
Gather Data On Your Audience
Social media is full of valuable insights for your business, and you can use it to gather information on a range of topics. It is a great way to gauge how you are performing on social media, and you can see if users are engaging with you and on what posts.
You will find different user behaviours on each social media platform, where social media insights are coming in helpful. Your social media insights can give you a broad outline of the following information:
- Age of users
- Location
- Time most active
- Engagement
- Followers
- How much content you post
- Gender breakdown
Attract a Younger Audience
Social media is where the younger and more tech-savvy users are. It is capable of reaching those users who you will not find through traditional marketing. Instagram and Tiktok are the places to be for brands at the moment. Tiktok has seen an enormous increase in the last year, and some brands are just killing it. They are hopping on trends and seeing massive engagement in their content. We are seeing Football Clubs keeping up with trends and going viral, even the smaller clubs. They know their young audience who purchase merchandise and kits are on these platforms.
As the younger customers are on social media, they tend to hop from one social platform to another. They were all obsessed with Instagram, which has now shifted to TikTok. No doubt, there will be more new ones, and you must keep up with the trends. Wherever your audience goes, you should go. A great tool to create videos or graphics is to use Canva.
Cost Effective
If you are not paying for ads on social media, it is free. You can set up profiles in a matter of minutes and start posting instantly. This is a great way to gain a following. On the other hand, it is pretty hard to grow organically on social media. Many businesses will take the next step and pay for an ad campaign to increase their exposure.
Paid social media is a game-changer for marketers all over the world. Companies tend to leverage paid social because organic can be challenging in a large online landscape.
The majority of eCommerce stores will use paid ads to generate more sales. There are differences between all social platforms, and that goes for paid ads too. There will always be one platform where you perform the best, so you should invest the most money. For example, if you are a cafe, then the likelihood is Twitter will not be your best social media platform, and a cafe will perform better on Facebook or Instagram.
Learn how to become a social media manager here.