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What can social media do for your business?

According to research, 90% of marketing experts say having a social media presence has increased their business exposure. With figures like that, it’s hard to ignore, but you’d be surprised just how many businesses are not using social media to its full potential. Yes, change is scary, and we can all be reluctant to welcome new things. I’m sure you’re wondering, what is social media marketing going to do for me? Do I really need it? The answer is Yes, yes you do! Unless you live on a remote island and your target audience is vagabond butterflyfish!  

Brand awareness

Social media can be used to raise brand awareness. Posting consistent and quality content reminds people of your brand and it can also entice new customers. If you post some quality content which is then shared by a follower this puts your content in front of a whole new audience increasing your brand awareness and offering you the potential to generate new leads all for free!  

Gated Content

Another way to land new customers is by using share gated content. Gated content can be articles, videos, ebooks, reports or webinars and in order for people to gain access to them they need to fill in a form and leave behind personal information such as their name and email address. There are pros and cons to using gated content but if your content is appealing and engaging it will result in better leads. We don’t recommend you make all your content gated, people do get fed up of having to fill in forms to get access to information so offer out 99% of your content for free and save that unique must-read content for the gated content.  

Customer Service

Having a presence on social media is an effective way to offer customer service to your community. You cant avoid this, people use social media for research before they make purchases and then they turn to social media after purchases to leave reviews. According to Ambassador, 71% of consumers who have had a good social media customer service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others. You should build real customer relationships by engaging in comments, jazz it up and make it fun, it doesn’t always have to be professional. We also recommend you have a strategy in place for how to handle those negative comments. Definitely, do not ignore them, your community is watching and you will be judged. Make sure you know which to respond to in public and which to respond to in private.  

Free PR

1. Each time a consumer uses social media to mention/tag your business this puts your brand in front of an audience you didn’t have direct access too. 2. Each time you include a # in a tweet or Instagram post you make your brand discoverable to the world wide web who is searching this #. This means an increased audience which if course means potential new leads. 3. If you create some A* content, perhaps you’ve launched a promotional video, you have the chance to take your brand viral. We’ve all heard about the overnight success of a Facebook video. This could be you! 4. Is there a big event trending on social media that you are an expert on? Or maybe you have strong views on this trending topic, well get involved! Be active in the online community and engage with people, this will increase your chances of mentions, shares, followers, likes or retweets. The possibilities of free exposure on social media should be taken advantage of.  

Audience Insights

Once you’re established on social media use the insights or analytics to understand who your audience is. You can use the insights to establish the age, gender and location of the people who follow your brand. You can also use the insights to understand what time your audience is online which will help you understand the best day and time you should be sharing your content.  

Targeted Adverts

Social media offers the opportunity for you to get your content in front of the people who are most likely to want to see it. Why pay thousands of pounds to advertise on a bus where only 30% of the audience MIGHT be interested. The bus provider can’t tell you how many of the people who saw your advert were interested. Why not use social media to target the exact people who you want to get your brand in front of. Use your social media insights tools to help you understand who your current audience is and combine it with the interests and behaviour demographics to get even more precise. If you want to get really precise and reach out to new leads Facebook gives you the opportunity to get really targeted with lookalike audiences. Facebook and Instagram are connected and because of this, you can create an audience for your Facebook advert based on your Instagram followers. Better yet, If your website/blog has subscribers, you can even connect your host i.e. MailChimp to your ad manager and target lookalike audiences based on those subscribers. Check out Facebook Blueprint to help you understand Facebook’s marketing tools. Once you know what you’re doing, the potential is endless, and the ROI (return on investment) is the most unbeatable in any kind of marketing.  

Spy on Competitors

Do you want to know what your competition is doing without ringing them up and asking? Of course you do! And it’s unlikely they will tell you what tricks they have up their sleeve! At least 60% of businesses in the UK alone are using social media, look them up and see what they are doing. Do they have any promotions on? Are they competitively priced? Do they have more or fewer followers than you? Take notes and adjust your strategy accordingly.  

Boosts SEO

Search engine crawlers know which pages are consistently earning traffic. Each time you share your websites URL on your social media pages you are creating new entry points for people. The more people that visit your website, the higher your site ranks on Google, and the higher your site ranks, the more organic traffic you get to your site.   If you weren’t convinced before you should be now! Social media is a powerful marketing tool offering heaps of free exposure opportunities for your business. It won’t happen overnight for the most of us and it may be trial and error but eventually, you will increase brand awareness, improve your public image and hopefully increase sales.