Let’s start with one simple fact: your business needs a social media presence.

It doesn’t matter what kind of business you are involved with, from a small local family shop, to a big global business, whether you are selling products or services, Social media is an essential part of your business marketing strategy.

Social platforms help you connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand, and play a significant role in boosting your leads and helping you find those dream customers.  That all adds up to more sales.

Social media has become one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, providing incredible benefits that enable you to reach millions of potential customers worldwide. If you are not using social media, you are missing out on an incredible opportunity.

With more than three billion people around the world using social media every month, it’s so much easier to raise awareness about your products and services and cost effective too.

Getting social media off the ground or improving what you are already doing, doesn’t need to be onerous, time consuming or intimidating… just good for business.

Here are seven reasons why investing in social media will benefit your business.

Increased brand awareness

why social media is good for business

social media is good for business

If people don’t know about your business, they can’t become your customers. You don’t want to be the best kept secret.  Social media boosts your visibility among potential customers, enabling you to reach a wider audience. The effort is well worth it as you will significantly increase your brand recognition.

Commit to spending just a few hours a week and you will reap the rewards. Its important to have regularity and consistency and avoid a feast or famine approach.

Social media is easy, but its good to have a social media strategy.  Define what you want to achieve.  Think about what you want new customers to discover about you and your services and who those target customers are for your business.

Cost-effective

Social media is one of the most cost-effective methods of reaching your potential customers.  Best of all its free to create a business profile and share content on all the major social networks, so you have nothing to lose, you just need a little time.

You can also choose to use paid advertising, which can be very targeted indeed and will help you manage your spend and budget more effectively. Investing a little time and a little money can significantly increase your conversion rates in generating those all-important leads and sales.  Be sure to monitor your return on investment.

Customer support and engagement

Social media is a great way to engage with your existing customers as well as new ones. Today many businesses are seeing the value to communicating with their customers this way to support customer service activities.  The more you communicate and engage with your target audience, the great the chance you have of conversion to sale, whether that is a new or existing customer.

Set up a two-way communication with your target audience to understand what they need, what they are interested in, and you will get their attention

Improved brand loyalty

With your social media presence, you make it easier for your customers to find you and connect with you. 71% of consumers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others. (Source: Ambassador).  Brands with active social media profiles have more loyal customers.

When you’re engaging on social media, you’re building connection and rapport with your audience. You’re taking the time to provide your followers with useful information, help and entertainment, without asking for anything in return. It is essential to engage with your customers and start developing a bond with them. Make them feel loved… In a competitive market, that can make a huge difference.

Healthier customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty typically go hand in hand. Use social media as an effective customer service tool.  Show customers you value them, not just as a source of revenue, but as people, as individuals.

Social platforms have successfully helped businesses break down barriers with their customers. Now, instead of calling a customer service line, more people are turning to social media to solve problems or find information.

Develop a reputation for being a responsive and caring brand by offering support through social channels:

  • Respond as quickly as possible to questions and concerns
  • Go out of your way to be positive and helpful.
  • Listen to criticism and make customers feel heard
  • Know when to resolve public conversations in private messages.

Customers appreciate the fact that when they post comments on your page, they receive a modified reply rather than a computerized message. A brand that values its customers, takes the time to compose a personal message, will improve their overall brand image.

Increased website traffic

One significant benefit of Social Media is that it will help you increase traffic to your website. Sharing your content on social media, you are giving users a reason to click-through to your website. Obviously, once visitors reach your site its important to provide them with other content that keeps them interested.

The more quality content you share, that is interesting and relevant to your target audience, the more inbound traffic you will generate.  The outcome of this effort will be rewarded with more enquiries, more leads and more sales.  You are creating conversion opportunities.

Boosts your SEO rankings

Social media presence is becoming a vital factor in calculating rankings.

mobile marketing

social media

Search engine crawlers constantly assess which web pages are consistently earning traffic and which are inactive, forgotten and ignored. Although your creating engaging content, along with a content strategy is a key in your search rankings, driving traffic to your optimized pages will cause them to climb much faster.

These days, to consistently secure successful ranking, SEO requirements are continuously changing.  So can no longer rely solely on your optimized website and posting regularly updates your blog. You need to share content on social media, which sends out a signal to search engines that you are active, current, and valid, with constancy.

Sometimes this can be as simple as re-sharing new content when it goes live on your website, but don’t abandon your other content.  Re-share existing relevant content each month to maximise the value and the investment of creating each piece of content.

Benefits of social media

You can’t get away from it, Social Media marketing has many advantages for start-ups, small and established brands. With regular updating the right social media marketing strategy, will lead to increased traffic, better SEO, improved brand loyalty, healthier customer satisfaction, increased lead generation and more sales.

Don’t let your competitors take your dream customers, shine a light on your businesses and you see the growth, faster.

Need some help getting started with social media, or improving the results and lead generation from your existing activities, then get in touch hello@intelligentmarketing.uk.com