Understanding the importance of social media marketing

Before setting the foot down, let’s agree to this one simple fact: every business needs a social media presence. Doesn’t matter if you run a small local shop or manage a big national company churning on millions. Social media is an integral part of the business and creating its marketing strategy is essential. Starting with the basics, social platforms help you to connect with your customers, create a considerable buzz and awareness about your brand and boost your leads and sales. Do you know, there are more than 4 billion people around the world on social media every month. People already have a good understanding of social media in 2020 and what if we tell you that more than 95% of the people that talk about brands online, do not follow those brands’ social media. People in the age demographic of 55-65 are twice as likely to engage with branded content than those 28 or younger.

As social media has emerged, we have found ourselves with a powerful tool with just a touch of our fingertips, all the information and pieces of content get shared all over the world, in the span of seconds. Multiple small business owners struggle in implementing social media strategy that helps in their marketing aspect of driving sales- this blog is all about that.

Importance of social media marketing

 As per the statistics, around 97% of small businesses use social media to lure new customers and around 80% of those business owners are still unsure of how to use social media for business. We understand, this statistic is very unsettling, but around 63% of the consumers who search for online businesses are likely to become their consumers that have their social media presence. These numbers show a huge potential for social media marketing to multiply sales but also demonstrates a lack of understanding to achieve your goals. Your consumers are online, but the question is, ‘where is your business?’

Social media marketing validates your brand and is an essential way for companies to reach their consumers when done correctly, it conveys their consumers that their brand is active and is focused on communication. But having a social media presence with no marketing strategy can be a catastrophic experience for your business with no plan. Here are a few ways how social media marketing can improve your business.

• Branding

To connect with your target audience, the best way is to display your business’ personality through the channel of social media. This platform is just an expanded opportunity for your brand’s voice, content and interactions. Whenever a viewer stumbles upon your Instagram feed, your branding, the voice of your business should convert them into a repeat customer. Define the aesthetics of your brand, colour, content outline, user-defined layout and staying away from the usual branding images.

• Customer loyalty

Brands are nowadays, laying the foundation on customer experience, as it directly impacts the reputation. Brands who conveniently and smartly engage on social media channels receive higher loyalty from their customers. More than 50% of Australians who follow their favourite brands on social media are categorised as loyal customers than those who don’t.

• Conversion-defined

Your post, advertisement campaign, blogs and curated email is an opportunity for every receiver and viewer to get converted into your customer. Be it a B2C or B2B company, social media can be turned as an effective tool when gaining new leads and moving people through your sales funnel.

• Humanising your brand

Faceless corporations are a part of history. These days, customers care about what they can see and how relevant they are. To humanise your brand, one can give this a personal touch through social media, which has a 100% higher lead to close rate than outbound marketing. One can also practice rapid repose to build a connection with their customer instead of putting them through automated recording steps via telephone.

• Customer insight

Develop some patience to practice social media listening. It allows you to gain valuable insight into your customer’s interests and behaviours. Check out reviews and what people think of your content and brand. Look at the metrics, see how far you have come and what is needed to change. Track purchase conversions or lead ads to find the right track of audience for your business.

• Customer service

Social media means communication. This is the best place to take care of your customer in regards to your brand. Customer interactions allow them to raise a query, say a complaint and clear the doubt. It also helps you to enhance your relationship with them, tackling a negative review and creating an opening line of communication.

Social media is a long term approach, there isn’t an overnight success (unless you get viral, but that’s a different story). If you can learn to effectively communicate with your brand’s customers, you can enhance these benefits.

The need for social media marketing

• Multi-channel marketing

A social media marketing strategy lay your foundation of business and set a measurable objective for the desired outcomes. One should have an approach of multiple marketing platforms that allows your brand to connect with multiple sets of customers and cross-market their content on different platforms.

You can find our client’s presence on the top 4 most influential social media platforms. This allows the brand to connect with various audiences and cross channel promote their content.

• Reduces the cost: Social media marketing can take your business global with a lower cost than the traditional advertising.
• Growing customer base: Satisfied customers are one thing but happy NEW customers is another level. Every time you see your customer using your product or service, make sure you take a creative approach on displaying them on your platform.

Your social media strategy has the full chance of winning new customers, keeping the existing ones and expanding your business with better products. It is advisable to not take a short way out. If your strategy doesn’t succeed, don’t give up. Being comfortable and safe is the death of your brand. As said, social media is a marathon, not a race.