Reasons Why Social Media is Important To Business
Social Media helps businesses with the ability to connect with their customers and increase their brand awareness, which leads to a boost in leads and sales.
Social media is one of the easiest to use and understand, not to mention the most profitable digital platforms that is available.? By creating a social media strategy for your business, you can effectively increase your brand recognition. Setting aside a few hours a week, 91% of marketers claim that their efforts had resulted in a significant increase in brand awareness and heightened user experience. ?Check out the Global Social Media Research Summary 2019.
Cost-Effective
Social Media is free to use, meaning you can start using it to help build a brand with no start-up cost upfront.? If you decide to use paid advertising on social media, you are able to target an audience.?When done correctly and strategically, you can attain a higher return on investment than what you would see through traditional marketing methods.
Allows for Engaging Customers
71% of consumers who received a quick response on social media said they would recommend the product/service to others. Peer influence is a huge factor in brand awareness and loyalty.? Often people will see feedback from peers that they trust more than from someone they don?t know. Social media allows you to engage customers and get their perspectives and outlooks so that you can improve your services and offerings.?This not only builds a relationship with customers which leads to brand loyalty.
Improved Brand Loyalty
Social Media makes it easy for people to find you and connect with you.? As customers connect with you, it allows you to grow and nurture relationships, which builds brand loyalty.? A strong bond with customers it what encourages them to share your product/service with friends and family.? Many times it is through this method that you will find brand ambassadors that will best represent your brand.
Reputation Management
Through social media, you are able to see what customers are saying about you.? That opportunity can be used to leverage the good reviews for your benefit and if there are any issues, you can address them head-on and professionally. Brand reputation can be made or destroyed via social media.
Gain Insight and Awareness
Through social media, you are able to observe activities on your profile and see customers interest and opinions that without social media you would not get.? It?s also a great way to be able to check the awareness of your overall industry and find where you can serve customers better to fill in gaps of needs that haven?t been met. Social media listening can help you improve strategy, inspire content and help with creating marketing initiatives.
Increased Traffic
Sharing your post through social media channels helps in building traffic back to your site. ?A study by Pew Research Center found that 68% of American adults are Facebook users.? 78% of 18 to 24-year-olds use Instagram and 45% are on Twitter.? Even for older Americans (65+ up), 37% were social media users.? Social media allows people to find your new web content and click through to your site.
Platforms
Facebook- Arguably one of the most powerful social networks in the world.? They have around 1.55 Billion active monthly users.? This includes startup companies and Fortune 500 companies as well.? If you have a business, you should be engaging them via Facebook.
Twitter- Has been called the ?in the moment? platform and has around 255 Million active monthly users.?Twitter is a great platform to reach out to people and get quick replies.
Instagram- A picture is worth a thousand words, and that is essential, where Instagram is based.?Where Twitter is more witty words, Instagram focuses on images. Designed so that customers can post, share, comment and engage.
Pinterest- This is often used as a visual search engine. ?It is a huge traffic driver for many sites and is worth creating pins and applying for rich pins to increase visibility.
Linked In- This platform allows for professional and press release like communications.? It is a great way to get positive news out to customers, prospects, and stakeholders.
Successful brands tend to have a healthy social media presence which signals search engines that the brand is valuable, credible and trustworthy.? Meaning- it plays a part in your overall search engine optimization (SEO) plan.
Statistics
78% of Small Business Brands use social media to attract new customers
33% of customers have identified Social Media as the place where they find new brands, products, and services.
59% if people access social media every day or most days.? And over a third check it over five times a day.
According to Marketing Sherpa, 95% of online adults ages 18-34 are likely to follow a brand on social media.
As you can see, these are a few reasons why social media is important to your business. ?The great thing about social media is it is a free tool that you can start with and build up to paid options.