Social media marketing is nothing but the use of social media platforms to promote particular products and services and connect with audiences. These marketing strategies may help to build a particular company’s brand awareness, drive website traffic, and even increase sales. By getting more insight into a particular brand, one can build a larger following and a loyal customer base. Under social media marketing, companies use various social media platforms to advertise and promote their products and services. Along with this, they connect more organically with existing and potential customers.
There are various benefits to social media marketing, including brand awareness, audience engagement, and boosting website traffic. Businesses that fail to use social media marketing in their overall marketing strategy then find it difficult to survive because it has proved to be a valuable part of marketing in this digital era.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing:
1. Improve the brand recognization
When social media marketing is done correctly, it has a positive impact on the brand. It can help cultivate the company while building loyalty, trust, authority, and recognition. And thus, brand credibility and trustworthiness are built. People like to see authenticity. For this, a company can post content that shows the people behind the brand and real users of the products and services.
2. Engage the audience
Social media marketing proved not only a good way to grow brand awareness but also that this marketing strategy provides an opportunity to engage the audience of a company. By sharing user-generated content, responding to each post, and following up with dissatisfied customers, a company does it. Unlike traditional media like television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, social media platforms allow businesses to interact with customers. Through social media, getting customers’ perspectives about particular products and services is easier than ever. For example, a company can share new content, get immediate feedback about its offerings, and see what people say about the company on their accounts. Social media offers both brands and customers a chance to express themselves within a moment. Engaging with followers on different social media platforms shows that a company cares about customer needs through personalized interactions.
3. Promote customer service
A company may already have phone lines, chat, email, etc. dedicated to serving customers, but in this digital age, social media has proved another great way to connect with customers. On social media, the company also received criticism from the public. But a well-timed and thoughtful reply shows the activeness and care of the audience. It means the company is listening to feedback and responding to it. As long as proper support, along with resolution to an upset customer, also increases the chance of customers going shopping with the company again, this behavior helps to build trust and loyalty and stay ahead in the industry.
4. Impact sales and conversion rates
Successfully marketing either a brand or a specific product or service on social media should have a positive impact on sales as well as conversions, ultimately fulfilling the goal of spending on any type of marketing. Currently, many of the leads are generated from social media, because industry research shows that the average person spends approximately 147 minutes, or two and a half hours, on social media each day. It means if the content posted by a company is effective, then it will be seen widely and compels viewers to become customers.
5. Become a thought leader
All social media platforms offer a voice for the company. Whether a particular company is posting insightful content on LinkedIn, sharing news through Facebook and Instagram, taking a stand on Twitter, etc., on social media platforms, shows the thought leadership behavior of the company. It is very helpful to build trust and loyalty among the customers. There is a higher expectation among the people for businesses to take stances on important issues and speak out. It improves brand authenticity. Hence, social media is a great platform to share thoughts on current events and help the brand stand out as a leader in the respective industry.
6. Study the competition
A company can gain insight about where it needs to improve and what not to do by looking through its competitors’ social media posts. This can help to get a sense of how they position a product or service within the market or which trends they’re keying in on. For example, if a company can borrow the strategies of competitors from social media and then add its own unique twists to them, sales will increase more than usual.
7. Improve presence of search engine result page (SERP)
Google constantly pulls information from social media platforms like Instagram images, Facebook pages, and tweets into its search engine results. By successfully marketing a particular brand on social media, that brand also increases its SERP presence. Keeping an eye on what’s new and trending can help cater to social media content as per the needs of the public while adding the brand’s unique flair. The posts on these platforms help keywords (how the audience would phrase their questions in a search engine) arise and enable making changes as per needed. Thus, paying attention to social media platforms helps to find out the interest areas of customers and the segments where a brand could improve to meet their needs. Apart from this, content can be posted easily on social media, which proved a great way to draw the attention of audiences.
8. Boost website traffic
Social media content helps increase a company’s website’s traffic. By posting top-notch quality and engaging content on that particular website or even blog on that company’s social media platforms, it can easily attract readers or viewers at each time of publishing. Apart from this, engaging in interactive chats on social media platforms is a great way to make a brand’s name known among the public, reach out to new audiences, and demonstrate the company’s skills while directing people to that particular website. To secure loyal customers, a company needs to go beyond self-promotion. All of the social media platforms should include the company’s website. A lead view of the content of a social media platform may be followed by a link to the website to learn more. and hopefully, people can either decide to purchase from that particular site or easily access more information about the business.
9. Attract top-of-funnel leads
Social media is a powerful lead-generation tool for businesses and helps to offer advertising formats to gather leads. Ads posted by a company produced more leads at half the cost of traditional ad campaigns. Apart from this, social media is an excellent way to show a particular brand or products and services in front of new audiences. While these audiences may not be ready to avail of the services yet, they may enjoy posts enough to check out more of the content posted by a company. Thus, social media is an easier way to explore a brand in a simple, low-commitment way for potential customers.
10. Earn greater ROI
Both paid and organic social media marketing can produce high returns on investment. Organic social media marketing means a particular company posts content online without paying anything. Popular posts, especially those that go viral, may have a huge reach without spending any money. It is a cost-effective way to promote a particular business on social media platforms for free. While paid social media marketing is also a good option, buying ad space on social platforms can help you reach a different audience than paid ads on search engines. and it can put a brand in front of new customers and still deliver great ROI. However, most social media users will quickly scroll to another post if the content looks like spam or seems like an ad. Since there’s nothing wrong with using social media to advertise if a company wishes to go that route, be sure to pay for it to look professional.