In 2017, the Social media audience exceeded the mark of 3 billion users worldwide, 80% of whom are subscribed to business accounts and constantly follow the activities of companies. So if your marketing strategy doesn’t include SMM, you’re missing out on an effective and inexpensive way to engage nearly half of the world’s population. And now we’re going to talk about all the benefits of social media for your business!
Benefits for Brand Development
Increased visibility
With an audience of nearly half the population, social media is a natural medium for attracting potential customers. Statistically, 60% of Instagram users first learn about companies or new products on the platform.
Brand trust
A U.K. study by Trinity Mirror Solutions found that more than half of the adult social media audience doesn’t trust a company until it proves it delivers on its promises. Show what values you stand for, how you treat customers and employees, and what the benefits of your product are. The ability to create relationships is one of the key benefits of social media for businesses.
Brand as an opinion leader
On social media, a brand can easily act as an opinion leader in its niche. It’s another way to gain consumer trust and increase reputation among competitors.
Always in the top
Most social network users check their accounts more than 17 times a day. Your job is to publish interesting and informative content in your communities (channels) to constantly remind potential customers about your products/services.
Growth Benefits
Increased website traffic
Publishing content from your blog on your website, participation of company representatives in public Twitter chats, Facebook and VK discussions is a great way to attract interested readers to your site.
Lead Generation
Social media offers a simple way to attract potential customers – lead generation. Specially designed ad formats for lead generation are almost 8 times more profitable than conventional advertising with a link to a website. For example, Renault Corporation launched a Facebook ad that invited users to “learn more” about a new model to get a free test drive. The “Learn More” button redirected users to a test-drive order page.
Increased sales
It doesn’t matter what you sell, it matters that social media helps you sell it.
Benefits to Content Creation and Distribution
Content Promotion
Promoting your own content through social channels is a great way to increase visibility and expand your audience. Using Adobe as an example: the corporation used sponsored content on Linkedin to showcase its research in marketing, including infographics and videos. As a result, marketers who saw the ads were 50% more likely to view Adobe as a future essential digital marketing service.
Go viral
When users like, repost or comment on your posts, those users’ friends and followers also take notice of you. Going viral is a difficult task, but without social media, it’s not possible at all.
Resources for content
There are two ways to create “powerful” content:
- Survey your subscribers and ask them what they want. This is a surefire way to create content that people will want to read and share.
- Engage user-generated content: Let customers talk about your brand. Attracting subscribers will create excitement around the brand and also provide you with a whole library of content for posts.
Benefits for Promotion
Reputation Management
Your customers are already talking about you, even if you don’t respond to them. Manage your brand reviews, encourage positive ones, and don’t ignore negative ones before they grow into a global problem. Is someone blatantly lying in reviews? Share your point of view, calmly and professionally. Is someone praising a brand? Don’t forget to say, “Thank you.”
Reputation Crisis
When two black men were arrested at a Starbucks coffee shop, the hashtag #boycottStarbucks went viral lightning fast, with a spread rate of 100,000 hashtags in 3 days. This is a clear reputational crisis. The company immediately posted an apology on social media, followed by several more announcements, including that cafes in the area would be closed for racial bias training. No one knows how long the aftermath of the incident will adversely affect Starbucks’ reputation, but the consequences would have been worse had the company left things unchecked.
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Feedback
Social media gives you the opportunity to interact directly with consumers, as opposed to traditional media that involves one-way communication. If you want subscribers to be as engaged as possible, be proactive, respond to questions and feedback, create your own questions, and offer to answer them.
Customer Service
Users who subscribe to a brand page are often looking for profiles of representatives who can help solve their problems. Create accounts to support your audience; it’s extremely easy to do on social media.
Benefits for Service
Monitor mentions related to your brand
Social media monitoring is a key source of information about your competitors, brand, and niche.
Get to know your consumers better
Social media generates a wealth of real-time data about your customers. Use this information to further your decision-making.
“Measure” sentiment
Brand attitudes on social media are measured by comments, reviews, posts, and the number of views. The more conversations about a company, the better, you think? Not if most of it is negative. Examine how audiences feel about your brand, find out problem areas and work to improve your terms of service.
Keep an eye on your competitors
Knowing what customers are saying about your competitors is important, too. For example, by analyzing your competitors’ reviews, you can identify product (service) pain points, fix them, and win on them.
That’s All!
In conclusion, using social media for business today is just as important as using email 15 years ago. Businesses will need to embrace the challenges of social media in order to remain profitable, maintain their reputation, and remain relevant to their industry.