Benefits of Social Media

What Exactly Are The Benefits of Social Media in 2018?

Everyone knows that getting your name "out there" is one of the single most important things that a business must do. This is especially true if you are just getting started or expanding your service line or market.

Social Media Allows You to Listen

Listening for opportunity is the single most effective way that you can be in the right place at the right time. Social media allows you to listen to the needs of your customers and the concerns of your competitor's customers (soon to be yours). Social listening brings you closer to the customer than ever before. Imagine being at a networking event and, from across the room, hearing that someone desperately needed the product/service that you offer. Social Media let's you do just that!

Social Media Allows You to Influence

Influence your ideal customers to take action and drive awareness and sales. Build trust and authority by sharing your content to inform and educate prospective customers. It's no secret that your ideal customer is online, just make sure you pick the right social channel. Focusing your strategy on influencing your prospective customers helps increase your awareness while giving you more targeted exposure to those that are actually interested.

Social Media Allows You to Network

One of the last benefits of social media is networking. Social media helps you boost your visibility, connect with people, and share your story. Share your business story online and connect with users, just like you would with someone at a networking event. Then grow that relationship further.

Use Social Selling To Seal The Deal

Social Advertising networks have had significant improvements since the early days. In 2017, the targeting options allow you to reach prospective customers who are in the market ready to purchase. Social selling integrates with your website, your content, and your brand to create a unique user experience.

Additional Benefits of Social Media

Increase Brand Awareness

One of the main benefits of social media advertising is increased brand awareness. Implementing a social strategy and getting your brand on platforms with billions of users is obviously good for brand recognition and allows you to syndicate content from platform to platform relatively easily. Additionally, anytime someone interacts with your brand on social media (by liking, sharing, commenting, re-tweeting, or re-posting) you get an exponential increase in brand awareness. Since the average social media user has well over one hundred friends or followers any time they take action it means your brand is automatically being exposed to at least one hundred more people.

Generate More Inbound Traffic

Without any social media marketing or online promotion, your business is relying mainly on word of mouth to generate new customers. While this can work for a small time in the beginning word of mouth proves to be incredibly sporadic over time. If you want your business to thrive and prosper you need a constant influx of new customers as well as retain old ones. Social media marketing helps you accomplish this. Without utilizing social media platforms you will have a difficult time getting your brand in front of different customers outside your loyal customer circle.  Anyone who is already familiar with your brand of business is likely searching for the same long-tail keywords you already rank for. Therefore, you need to expand your strategy to reach new customers.

Increase Search Engine Results Page Rankings

Additional business benefits of social media marketing include increased search engine rankings. Although you social media site does not directly influence how you rank organically it creates awareness and a buzz about your business and motivates customers to look you up in Google. If you aren't ranking on the first page in Google chances are customers won't find your website. Therefore, you have to do everything in your power to create compelling, relevant, quality content on your social platforms that integrate targeted keywords to help you rank higher in search engines.

Increase Conversion Rates

Anytime you have increased visibility your chances for conversion increase. With every new post or piece of content, you upload may drive additional customers to your website and increase traffic. The more people that visit your website the better your chances for conversion are. If you can post engaging content that will keep visitors on your page longer then you can create an impression on them. This is very important because it usually takes between five and eight visits or exposures before a customer will convert. If they are engaged and interested in what you post on social media they will return frequently and become more loyal and more likely to become customers.

Higher Customer Satisfaction

Social media is a networking and communication platform that your business can use to get customer feedback and develop important relationships. Creating a voice for your company is very important and will make customers feel more important. Nobody enjoys an automatic response to their question. They want to interact with other humans and feel valued. Social Media allows you to respond in a personalized way to give customers a better experience. Every single customer interaction is an opportunity for your business to demonstrate how you treat your customers. If customers actually see you interacting with other customers and treating them fairly they are more likely to engage with your business as well.

Increase Brand Loyalty

Any social media guide will tell you the importance of developing a loyal customer following. It costs significantly more to find new customers than it does to retain old ones. This means you have to do your absolute best to keep your current customers happy. Social media allows you to nurture and develop bonds with new customers online. Whether you are addressing a service failure or simple inquiry, how you hand your customers will have a drastic impact on brand loyalty. Loyal customers are also likely to forgive you for future service failures as well as recommend you to their friends and family.

Cost-Efficient

One of the main pros of social media advertising is how little it actually costs your business. Most social media platforms allow you to create your profile for free and paid promotions with each platform are a relatively low cost when compared to other marketing strategies. Furthermore, these low start-up costs mean you are more likely to have a higher return on investment and retain money that you can invest in other marketing areas.

Track Competitors Movements and Strategies

Social media marketing also helps you see and track what your competitors are doing and saying. Knowing what your competitor is doing is crucial to any strategy because it serves as the basis for your response. If you are going to reposition you brand and change your advertising strategy you have to know what your competitors are doing. The intelligence you can gather from social media can help you make these strategic business decisions to always try and stay a step ahead of the competition.

Geo-Target Your Content

Lastly, social media platforms allow for geo-targeting! Geo-targeting is essentially an effective way to segment your target market based on their location. One of the main benefits of social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter is that their advanced advertising tools allow you to show the right content, to the right person, in the right place, at the right time. Showing someone the right message in the right location is absolutely crucial to any marketing strategy because the level of desire can fluctuate drastically.