Social media is fast becoming a ubiquitous tool for business. There are more than a billion users on Facebook, 300 million on Twitter and over 500 million monthly users on Instagram. And while companies have had success using these platforms as customer service channels, they also serve as effective vehicles to promote one’s brand. Here are the top five reasons you should use social media for your brand.
#1: Boost Brand Awareness
Even if you’re a small business or just starting, it’s still important to use social media to improve brand awareness. Customers will not take your firm seriously unless you have a presence on multiple social media sites. The reason? Because customers like to do their research first. They like to find out more about companies before they take the plunge and buy, and they want to find out how active they have been on social channels. Ideally, they’d like to see how other customers fared when using the company’s products and compare performance with its competitors.
#2: Retain More Clients
Winning a client is expensive and time-consuming. So retaining them is imperative for many businesses. Social media offers a range of tools that make it easier to build deeper relationships with customers. In the past, it was hard to form a deep connection with the people who bought from you. You either had to make “courtesy calls”, or you sent them emails to check how they were doing. But today, with all the tools available on social media, two-way dialogue is much easier and more productive.
#3: Get Your Brand Shared
Spending money on PPC advertising for social media is a great way to reach a lot of people, but creating “shareable” content is even better. Sharing amplifies your reach and exposes your brand to a much broader audience than would be possible through conventional marketing. What’s more, when you develop shareable content for your brand, you automatically engage customers, making it more likely that they will want to consume your digital marketing material in the future.
#4: Boost Conversions
Driving traffic to your website is one thing, but getting them to buy what you’re selling is quite another. Many businesses make the mistake of prioritising the number of website visitors they get above the quality of those website visitors. Social media is an excellent tool for targeting the very people who are most likely to benefit from your product. With social media, you can avoid wasting your marketing budget reaching out to people who will not buy and instead focus on nurturing relationships with those who will. Social media engagement can help to explain to customers why they should buy your product, making it easier for them to click through and justify their purchases.
#5: Go Deeper With Your Audience
Because social media is inherently social, it makes it much easier for brands to go deeper with their customers. Target audiences are no longer passive recipients of marketing materials, but active members of a community of people trying to solve problems. As a company, you can help them do just that, increasing your value and boosting your brand.
Start with those 5 key points and try to take a little time each day to help grow your engagement and reach. If you have any helpful tips or example of how you’ve used social media for your personal brand please share them in the comments below.
