Whether you like it or not, social media is here to stay. The culture of memes and viral posts of cats will only continue to grow. You can fight it or use social media to help grow your business and move the needle forward.
We say you use it.
Whether you’re a small business (like us) or in the major leagues with companies like Apple, social media offers a unique way to tell your story and build meaningful relationships with your audience – especially with the ever-growing number of social media platforms now available.
And no matter what industry you’re in, this is important in creating a successful brand.
Social media marketing can help your bottom line, which is why it should be one of the key pillars of your digital marketing strategy.
The consensus is that social media marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing. Instead of spending $5,000 on an ad, you can spend $500 on targeted social media campaigns across specific channels, making it a cost-effective and organic solution to your financial woes.
And it only requires a little time investment to see economic benefits. The Social Media Examiner found that: “By spending as little as 6 hours per week, over 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media.” This is because people are likely to buy from brands they follow on social media, 57% more likely – just one of the reasons why more and more businesses are heavily investing in developing a robust social media strategy.
Social media marketing has fast become a powerful tool for businesses. Still, with different social media platforms better for different audiences, a shotgun approach no longer delivers the results it once would. Instead, a strategic approach is needed to provide platform-specific content that reaches the right audience precisely at the right time.
Why invest in social media management?
Why would you invest your hard-earned business dollars in social media management when you can do it yourself? The truth is social media marketing is a complex beast, with content types, formats, messaging, and style playing an essential role in engagement and conversion rates. Plan and execute social media to ensure you get results aligned with your business objectives.
8 reasons why social media is worth the investment:
1. Build Brand Awareness
We want to meet people where they’re at, and people are on social media. How many? 3.48 billion. That’s a massive amount of people spending their time reading, watching, and listening to content across various social media platforms. It’s valuable insights like these that put the power of social media in perspective.
To show who you are – your voice, personality, ethics, and integrity – social media is the perfect avenue to increase awareness of your brand. Social media provides a platform, 24/7, to continue to tell the story of who you are.
Every post is a chance to teach someone more about you, presenting the opportunity for connection through engaging, relevant content.
On that note…
2. Develop Meaningful Relationships
Social media allows your audience to communicate with you, and you get to communicate back. This direct communication is quick, easy, and simple, enabling you to connect with people on a real human level. (Unless it’s a bot account, of course.)
You can constantly be in contact with your community, making your brand more approachable and accessible. Ultimately, you’re investing in your people, and that is extremely valuable.
Forging authentic connections with people is what creates longevity for budding brands as well as legacy companies.
3. Improve customer service
Just as social media provides a platform for connecting with your audience, it’s also a medium for customer service. It’s fast and straightforward, and it shows people who are not (yet) your customers how responsive you are to the needs of your tribe.
Even by monitoring social media and the sentiment towards your company, you can preemptively address customers’ issues and build better processes within your business.
4. Humanize your brand
People like to connect with people – not faceless companies. They want to know if there are real humans behind the brand.
Using social media allows you to humanize your brand, which makes it easier to engage with your audience and, in turn, build brand loyalty.
5. Increase Brand Loyalty
All of these benefits will increase brand loyalty. By consistently and authentically showing who you are, your audience becomes more familiar with your brand and then grows to trust you more. Especially if you take the time to connect with them.
6. Audience Targeting and Cultivation
With social media, you can be very specific about who you connect with and what they are learning about you. First of all, the audience on social media is huge (in the billions, as we said before), providing a massive pool of potential customers, fans, and followers.
With strategic social media marketing, you can run campaigns, ads, and other promotions targeting people and narrow that large audience through several criteria.
Plus, you can find more people like your existing followers and expand your community. Through hashtags, for example, you can discover people with similar interests and posts. (Check out our blog on how to Improve Your # Game.)
If you’re feeling especially sneaky, you can even search through your competitors’ followers and engage with them, extending the reach of your social media presence.
7. Establish Yourself as a Thought Leader
While social media allows you to show different sides of your brand, it also lets you communicate your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in the field. Sharing your knowledge with your followers isn’t only helpful — it demonstrates your value.
The more expertise you share, the more valuable you become and the more trust you cultivate.
You want to be the account followers flock to when news in the industry breaks to see your opinion so they can formulate their own.
8. Driving inbound traffic
So, what does all of this hard work do in terms of your return? It drives your inbound traffic. (And it saves you money in marketing while generating sales, as described above.)
In fact, the Social Media Examiner found that increased traffic was the second major benefit of social media marketing in 2018, with 78% of marketers reporting positive results. By the way, the first was increased exposure…we told you so.
Working with clients like RiDe Oakland and Biro and Sons (expert silversmiths based in San Francisco), we’ve seen massive results for businesses looking to engage their community and grow their base of customers through targeted social media marketing. And we want the same success for you.
A proven approach to social media management
Whether you hire an accomplished communications team (you know how to reach us) or do it in-house (but really, you should call our team), social media can help your business connect to your audience on a deeper level, elevate your brand, and achieve your financial goals.
Our proven approach to social media management means we can execute a social media marketing strategy that delivers results. We do this through targeted social media marketing that delivers engaging content that connects and converts – driving traffic, improving customer loyalty, and attracting new customers. In the process, you’ll gain valuable insights into your audience and what they want, helping you to make better business decisions.
You could call it low-risk, cost-effective advertising, and who doesn’t love that!?
