Social media and it's importance to your business

If you’re a business, then you should be using social media. If you’re an up and coming business, then you’re either misinformed or naive to not be on. If you need some convincing, we have listed out some key reasons as to why.

Every customer you would ever need is on it

There are over 3 billion internet users—and 2/3rds of them have some form of social media accounts. Popular social platforms have become marketing giants, offering businesses valuable data about their customers and a way to reach them. All of these users are potential customers for your business and this is the easiest way to engage them.

Drive Targeted Traffic

If you create or share something particularly good, with well-placed posts you can drive thousands of visitors. With a single share you can reach thousands more people, this can create a avalanche event where you end up reaching a huge number of people with very little effort.

Search Engine Optimization.

Not only does social media help you direct people to your website, but the more social media shares you receive, the higher your search ranking will be.

Competitive Edge

While you may not be on social media, I can guarantee that your competitors are, and if that’s the case you need to be on to avoid falling behind them. And if they aren’t on social media then you have an excellent platform to gain an advantage over them.

Data

Social media is prime territory for data capture. Users provide huge amounts of personal information and highly relevant data about themselves and their lives and connections. As well as individuals there is huge amounts of data on your competitors, what people like about them, what’s going on at the moment, and what they’re doing wrong. If you use this information correctly you can make strategic decisions, keeping your business on top.

It will help you connect with clients

Marketing was previously one-way communication. You send out your advert and someone sees it. You can generate feedback with surveys but it’s slow and people don’t really care. With social media, you can post something and a customer instantly replies. This helps to create a community of fans and followers that see you as more than just a business entity.

Improved Customer Service

Today’s consumers regularly head to social media to seek assistance, ask questions and provide feedback. It’s quicker than a call and provides evidence of the communication, two key things to a consumer. If you’re not online your business will miss those conversations and all the benefits that come with them.

Brand Recognition

With you controlling and having an individual profile, people will associate your brand with your social media ‘personality’. How you interact with people, the content you share and the look and feel of your all encompass this personality. For many businesses your online profile may be more important to consumers than your website.

Affordability

The best part about social media is that it’s free. If you have a computer and internet or a phone you can participate. For small businesses getting started, social media is an extremely easy and affordable option.

Higher conversion rates.

Social media marketing results in higher conversion rates. This is because brands become ‘humanised’ by online interactions and people are more willing to do business with another person, as opposed to an online company.

Directed Advertising

Social media ads are highly customisable. Facebook ads, for example, allow you to target users by location, industry, purchase history and likes. This means you can purely target your selected users, bringing down the potential acquisition costs.

Advert Analytics

A social media advert gives huge amounts of information. As you can target a specific sub selection of people, see the number of people who have seen it and the number and types of engagements, it’s easy to see which of adverts are working and which aren’t. If used correctly this can decrease advertising budget while increasing the user interaction.