All businesses, regardless of size, reap the benefits of social media marketing. If you’re a business owner, you understand that you have to market yourself to draw in new customers. Ignore social media advertising, and you’ll miss out on reaching more than half the world’s population.
These days, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn profile page is the first point of contact between your business and the outside world.
Social media has become the most powerful and prominent digital space. The platform is not just meant for social networking but is also an excellent means of digitally advertising your brand and your services. Happening slowly, social media channels might be the primary site where customers connect with brands.
Even when you’re a small business owner, and this kind of marketing can appear overwhelming, it’s vital to act now and thoroughly accept it. It will lend your business a hand if you do. And here’s an article to help you learn more about how social media marketing helps your business.
Social Media Marketing vs Digital Marketing
Many marketers often use social media marketing and digital marketing interchangeably when developing a marketing strategy. Although social media and digital marketing are occasionally described as related matters, they are two different facets of a marketing strategy.
The difference between the two is simple: Digital Marketing is a broad term and includes all types of marketing campaigns. In contrast, Social Media Marketing is one element of digital marketing and centers mainly on advertising on social media sites.
Digital marketing is the marketing mechanism of creating awareness and advertising a brand, product, or service using all known digital channels. It encompasses online and offline channels like digital billboards, text messaging, radio, television, etc.
Online marketing is a large portion of digital marketing. Search Engine Marketing (SEM), mobile marketing, email marketing, video marketing, and content marketing are generally part of digital marketing.
Social media marketing means using social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube to promote your products, services, or brand. Generally, it got to do with posting new and relevant content, searching for industry experts, interacting with a target audience and followers, and using other ways to attract users’ attention on various social channels.
As of 2022, internet users’ average everyday social media usage worldwide has amounted to 147 minutes per day. If you need to appear in the public eye and extend your reach globally, social media marketing is necessary for your business.
How does Social Media Marketing Help Your Business to Grow?
Social media gives enormous possibilities for businesses because potential customers regularly access it and are exposed to businesses. However, because it’s an ever-changing space and is crowded and extremely noisy, it still presents huge challenges for companies.
Businesses must have the right organizational structure to support social media.
It can be tough to follow the changing trends on social media, but using the right social media marketing plan can make a difference for your business. Here are 12 things you can examine to acknowledge that social media can drive business growth.
Spreads the Word about Your Business and Build Brand Awareness
Social media platforms are becoming the go-to source for potential customers wanting to have some info about a particular business. These sites authorize companies to present the latest and newest information about all things from services, products, offers, or upcoming events.
The main advantage of marketing on these major social networks is that you can build and increase brand awareness with your following that is probably interested in your deliverables.
People are delighted to share thoughts and feedback on social media, so provide them with links they can readily share and see them promote your business.
While you may not notice an instant return on your investment (ROI), when a prospective client requires your product or service, there is a high chance they will consider you. Amongst Facebook Live, memes, GIFS, and more, a content strategy must be thoroughly analyzed and delivered to build brand personality.
Drive Traffic to Your Website
Social media is reportedly the leading source of driving traffic to a website. When you post consistently on social media and include links to your site, your audience who have seen and read your post may also visit your website. And if what’s on your website captures their interest, odds are they’ll keep returning and be frequent and loyal visitors of your site.
Offer Social Proof
Social proof is influential, and social media is one of the soundest resources for delivering social proof to your audiences.
There are numerous possibilities for social proof on social media. The number of likes, shares, and followers are some of the most prominent and quickest goals to accomplish.
Create content and use appropriate social media marketing plans to procure a decent number of followers and post likes, comments, and shares. Plus, excellent client service coupled with an IRL marketing drive can earn your page a 4- or 5-star rating and a recommended badge.
Humanize your brand
Among the key benefits of social media for business is its capability to incite real human connections. Humanizing your brand can help your business avoid the lifeless, traditional marketing approaches and concentrate on being more relevant and exciting.
Present your team and staff to your audience by posting their photos or videos, and display how your past and current customers use and enjoy your services or products.
Genuineness builds trust. And trust leads to marketing receptiveness and attracts new audiences.
Provide Great Customer Service
It’s now the new media age, which indicates that people demand their assistance super faster. Over 60% of customers believe dealing with a problem promptly is the most crucial aspect of excellent service. That alone makes social media customer service integral because it’s another network for instant messaging.
Nowadays, nearly all customers prefer to communicate through social media posts, chat, or email, instead of making a phone call and talking to a human voice.
The way you respond to individuals on social media is vital, and you can utilize that instant to demonstrate why your customer service is superior to your competition’s customer service.
Build Thought Leadership
Social media emerges as among the most powerful channels for exhibiting thought leadership. It works as the direct channel between you and your customers, allowing you to start conversations, provide valuable insights, and interact with them, entitling you to become a foremost authority in your field.
Becoming a thought leader needs efforts that online networking platforms can strengthen. Be sure to work with social media platforms and boost your social presence. One might develop and pitch informative, interesting content and become involved in the industry community, specifically on social sites.
When your social media strategy corresponds with other marketing campaigns, your expertise will be prominent, and the audience will respect you.
Increase Conversion Rate
Phone calls might not get returned, and responding in an email might take days. However, social media is constantly being used and browsed by many. Whenever you captivate audiences with helpful and engaging content on social media, it is a chance to transport them over the customer journey.
Creating a compelling social media presence allows you to generate leads and build positive interactions. For a target audience with the possibility of becoming customers, you must be affiliated with them. This connection plays a vital part in converting them from potential buyers to frequent and loyal ones.
Despite your click-through rates being low, social media just boosts the number of prospects your business needs to connect with and aim for new buyers.
Change your Email Marketing Tactics
Social media platforms have dramatically impacted how small businesses consider email marketing. Email marketing offers direct marketing between you and your customer for conversion to sales. You can post your email newsletter to all of your social media networks to bring your newsletter outside the standard lists.
You can also utilize sites like Facebook to engage more audiences by incorporating a Join My Mailing List link on your Page.
Hand in hand, these two effective means have modified the marketing landscape and indeed balanced the space for small businesses attempting to better engage with existing clients and attract new audiences for their business.
Encourage Audience Engagement
At some point, a presumably mere social media post can gain hundreds of likes, comments, and shares. Social media posts with more lively and cooperative back-and-forths will accumulate more reach because the algorithm views them as engaging and beneficial.
People can even ask strangers about their latest transaction with you in the feed, or you can engage with your customers by answering questions and acknowledging mentions. Social media extends the conversation for quick interaction and builds relationships and customer loyalty.
Share and Update Quickly
Maintaining a running website for your business is necessary for online marketing. However, updating or editing a website, like upgrading the branding and optimizing for mobile, can uncommonly be a lengthy process.
Social media offers you a medium to change and update information quickly, in just a few clicks. It could be as easy as typing out a brief description regarding a new product and clicking the post button. And since it’s social media, you don’t need to worry about the visual factor as long as the format and data are accurate. Likewise, it lets you express and impart things directly and promptly.
Reporting and Analytics
It is constantly a headache for marketers to verify return on investment. However, using social media tracking and analytics tools, you can witness the actual result of your social media efforts, from posting to interactions across purchases.
Tools such as Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics monitor website traffic yielded from social media, email sign-ups, conversions, and ROI for organic and paid social media campaigns.
All social media metrics can display something if you’re reaching targets and fulfilling your goals.
Cost-effective
Posting content across social media is free. But as more social networks incorporate algorithms that filter what people see in their news feeds, your organic content may disappear in the jumble.
Benefit from the low-cost marketing features presented by the social networks to boost your content and promotions.
Nearly all social media advertising is more affordable than traditional advertising, so you don’t need to overspend to reach more users, expand your clients, and grow your business.
Furthermore, you’re permitted to sign up on different social channels for free before moving to paid ads.
Which Social Media Channels are Right for your Business Model?
With over 2.7 billion social media users worldwide, Facebook is reasonably necessary for social media marketing channels. Businesses can sign up for business pages, join groups, and create content. Audiences get content notifications, while the company can increase awareness on the brand, employ and monitor ads, gather precise audience insights, and communicate with users who need customer service.
Instagram is the ideal platform to reach a massive audience with more than 1 billion active users monthly. It’s now an international channel that enables businesses to humanize their brand, hire new talent, exhibit products, and motivate their audience.
Instagram is a mobile visual app, so it must be high quality when posting pictures and videos. Remember to use appropriate hashtags in your captions since these also expand the reach and create engagement.
LinkedIn is an excellent site for networking and growing your business. But one thing to take into account about LinkedIn is that you’re more presumably to discover business partners than new customers (except when your market comprises B2B).
If your marketing objective is to build relationships with experts that can help you get in touch with potential clients, referral partners, strategic partners, and other industries, focus on LinkedIn.
Twitter is a microblogging social media network that lets social media users post concise messages, photos, links, and other media types. There are over 330 million active users, and it’s the fifth most popular social media channel.
Because it’s not as aesthetics as other social networks, Twitter is usually intended for those who disseminate information, such as media outlets or B2B businesses. Twitter is a perfect social media platform for initiating discussions, though you need to be in the proper demographic to monetize on it.
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google, with more than 75% of Canadians on it, a portion of beyond 2 billion active monthly users. Combine that with the influential nature of video in marketing, and you have a sure-win fusion that presents an excellent marketing channel to advertise your business.
Videos differ in length, but you’ll attain more detailed ones on this social media platform, unlike shorter videos on other networks, including Tiktok and Instagram.
Depending on your business, Pinterest is among the leading social media platforms for small companies.
Pinterest is ideal for exposing fresh potential clients to your brand. That’s because audiences visit the site for inspiration. They wish to try something new, learn new concepts, discover amazing recipes, and frequently get encouraged to have their next purchase.
It takes a consistent schedule, attractive photos, and a plan to increase Pinterest followers. Using the proper momentum, you’ll notice more traffic and conversions right away.
Quick Social Media Marketing Strategy for Your Business
Set goals that seem sensible for your business
Your marketing goals will determine your social media marketing campaign and the amount of time and effort you’ll have to devote to your campaigns.
Identify your target audience
Allocate some time identifying your target audience, examining demographic and psychographic info or visible patterns that help you create a mental picture of your potential clients.
Decide which social platforms are right for you
Selecting your social platforms doesn’t need to be a make or break method. You can take advantage of various major platforms to reach more audiences or fulfill numerous business goals.
Determine key success metrics
Regardless of your industry or goals, your social media strategy must be data-driven. Instead of concentrating on vanity metrics, analyze data that conform with your goals. Some metrics to consider checking are:
- Reach
- Time Spent on Website
- Total Shares
- Brand Mentions
- Sentiment
- Conversion Rate
Construct quality content
There are four essential types of content in a social media marketing strategy: entertain, educate, inspire and convert. What you create must be guided by what you want to accomplish.
Create a social media content calendar
Posting unique content is a must; however, it’s also vital to have a strategy about when to share your content to best benefit from it.
Track and improve your performance
You must be able to adjust your strategy all year round. Without constantly examining your efforts, you’ll hardly recognize how one campaign accomplished versus others. With A/B testing, you can make minor adjustments that raise your success after some time.
Final Thoughts
Most small business owners are doubtful when constructing a social media marketing strategy. However, your business needs it. The significance of social media in industries is now more evident than before. Now it’s time that you begin to explore further and engage entirely with social media marketing.
Have more questions about social media marketing? Contact us at +1 866-938-3450 or email [email protected] to learn how our marketing agency can help generate more traffic and leads for your business.