Social media can benefit your business. Love it or hate it, it is integral to establishing authority in your area of expertise. There has been an undeniable shift in how we communicate, and in this case, how businesses are now communicating with their customers.
Personalisation and trust are KEY to any marketing strategy for any business; big or small. According to Erik Qualman, ‘We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how we do it’. On that note, it’s time to embrace the social media revolution.
Once you have identified your brand, developed keywords and feel you have a strong website as your backbone, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from reaping the benefits of a social media strategy!
how does social media benefit business?
You can gain fast, reliable consumer insight
Not only can you easily measure user demographics (such as where your customers are from, or their online browsing habits), but you can see how they are interacting with your content and business directly. The beauty of this is that you are constantly learning and developing to suit your target customers.
You can improve your SEO
Integrate your keywords into your social media content, and cross promote to your heart’s content! The more you do, the more they share, the higher you will rank. You can also direct traffic by creating customised short links to your main site, your blog or shop. Read our handy post on SEO for blogs.
You can gain invaluable market research and feedback
There’s always someone watching for grammatical errors – you get told about it – TICK, you’ve learnt something. It also improves your crisis management, customer service style and ultimately, sales and engagement with your target market. You can also keep track of your competitors easily through their social media activity.
There are opportunities to convert customers, plus higher conversion rates as a result!
The beauty of social media is that there are so many platforms that utilise different forms of media. From video and picture sharing, to professional networks such as LinkedIn: the better your visibility, the more interest you will have in your brand. Just make sure your content has that balance of social and professional!
It improves your authority in your field
Customers love to see businesses creating content and interacting online, it can often make a faceless business credible. Customers that are satisfied will often be happy to spread the word; whether that be on an online forum or when talking to their friends – it’s free advertising.
It’s very cost-effective
If you can find someone who can spend, on average one hour a day, to developing your social media strategy, results will follow. Equally, you don’t have to sign up to any paid advertising on social media until you’re feeling confident enough that you know the goal that your advertising should have. Plus, any loss in interest or following will not devastate your strategy.
It helps you recognise where your business has been, and where it is going
The customer journey has changed, and there are now multiple influencers across many platforms. The ‘numbers game’ still exists, but in a very different context. Your following on social media can directly reflect the reach your business has, and ultimately, any future success.
Still not convinced? Award-winning Socialnomics author Erik Qualman might be able to help (to the tune of Fatboy Slim…). Watch his critically acclaimed videos.