The Importance of Social Media Marketing
Why is social media marketing important for building a successful business?
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Social media enables your business to build a successful digital brand. Let’s face it: your buyer persona is already spending several hours each week on social platforms. These social media marketing tips will help you determine how to get your message in front of buyers sooner through authentic brand building, community engagement, and establishing a successful online presence.
Building an Authentic Brand
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Let’s take a closer look at social media for business, shall we? A key benefit is the access you’ve gained to an avenue where you can humanize your brand. Now, your company may already have a professional website and contact page, but social media provides a chance to create brand awareness, tell your story, and establish brand authority.
Create Brand Awareness & Discovery
Social media is a digital platform that can genuinely connect you with your followers. You now have a space where you can peel back the many layers of your brand. When you begin to create a strategic social media schedule and actively post, you can share with your consumers your values, company history, and mission. Take the chance to make your brand more personable and accessible.
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Building Brand Story/Voice/Brand
Everyone loves a good story — tell that story through written word and captivating visuals on a social media platform. Your audience will discover your voice as you share tidbits about workplace culture, behind-the-scenes, testimonials, product development, or client onboarding processes.
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Establish Brand Authority (Show Your Expertise)
Sharing authentic but crafted posts that inspire, educate, engage, and add value to your audience will build trust and rapport. Partnering with affiliates for your brand like current or former customers who share transformative stories about your products or services will strengthen your brand as a thought leader in the industry. The more you showcase your company’s knowledge and expertise, the more you’ll position yourself as an authority in the marketplace.
Building An Engaged Community
By weaving a strategic social media schedule into your already-developed marketing plan, you’ll begin to build an engaged digital community. You can use this newfound virtual voice — paired with an effective hashtag strategy — to increase brand discussion, diversify event promotion, interact with your customers, and gain a better understanding of your audience.
Generate Discussion
Imagine social media as a cocktail party for your business. You’ve invited potential and current customers to mingle, discuss and ask questions about your products or services. How awkward would it be if a client tapped you on the shoulder, started chatting and you stood there saying absolutely nothing? [crickets]. You wouldn’t do that in person, so you shouldn’t do it online either! Social media was built to be just that: social. Humans are social creatures. We crave interaction and these platforms create an environment that facilitates discussion and sparks conversations both within and outside your industry.
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Promote Events and Attendance
Engage with your community by promoting and hosting events within the platform. Give your followers a VIP experience with live video demonstrations, behind-the-scenes content, webinar access, Q&A sessions, and guest panels. Reward your followers with discount codes or sneak-peek content that isn’t available to the general public.
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Interact with Customers/Experience
Ask easy-to-answer questions with your content that elicits engagement. Invite your followers into the conversation and make sure to respond to likes, shares, and comments. This is a two-way street. Each action taken on your post provides you with a new chance to interact with customers or potential leads. Build brand loyalty by resharing what others are saying about your products or services.
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Understand Your Audience [Social Listening]
Follow your ideal client and spend some time “socially listening” to your audience based on their engagement. You’ll find that you have a better understanding of what they respond to, what they want more of, and what they need from your business. It’s a personal connection to your consumers that extends far beyond the point of sale.
Building Success
Instead of viewing social media as an afterthought or an in-the-moment marketing tool, consider the value a sustained social media plan offers your brand in the long run.
Let’s take a closer look into what you stand to gain.
Increase website traffic
Having a presence on social platforms increases your website traffic. You already own a piece of internet real estate — your website — and by creating a strategic social media schedule, you can easily drive your followers to your site.
Generate Leads/Drive Sales
Social media allows your brand to pull evergreen content from your blog or website. Posting on social platforms will place your content in front of diverse eyes, ultimately converting views into leads and leads into sales. Every post or story is a chance to highlight a new product or service for your company without direct selling. It’s a way to generate awareness, offer the value of your brand, and move the conversation into your sales funnel.
Creating Loyalty/Advocates
Imagine the digital reach when your messaging connects with an advocate who not only likes your post but shares your content with their network. Acknowledging and sharing a brand loyalist will grow your community. If a customer took the time to engage with you on social media, respond and continue to nourish that relationship. Others will see the engagement on your accounts and recognize the compassion you have for your followers and want to connect with your business.
Returning Revenue Stream
You may have noticed the impact influencers have on social media. Influencers have blown up over the past few years and have slowly worked their way into many companies’ digital marketing strategies. Marketing through influencers can pay dividends into your ROI. By connecting with brand affiliates, you can easily tap into a revenue stream. You’re increasing your company awareness beyond your website and offering customers several places to connect with and purchase your products and services.
Reviews and Recommendations
Respond! Even if it’s something as simple as thanking them for taking their time to share their thoughts. Responding to all reviews and recommendations regarding your brand should be one of your company’s best practices. For better or worse, your brand is being reviewed online (if it isn’t, try this guide). Your social media accounts are an extension of your guidelines for handling suggestions and concerns in-house. Treat the positive and negative reviews and recommendations as a chance to learn more about your buyers.
Provide Excellent Customer Service
Likes, shares, and comments allow you to increase your engagement with current and potential customers. With that in mind, make sure you provide above-and-beyond customer service. This online relationship you create will improve your credibility and grow your online community. Establish social media best practices for employees handling online customer service and reward followers who praise your brand. Look at your virtual village grow!
Improve Employee Recruitment Efforts and Engagement (HR efforts)
Social media is a great place to recruit future employees. You can tell a lot about workplace culture based on a brand’s social media account. When you authentically tell your company’s story with visuals and posts, people take notice. Your next great manager could be passively following along. Try posting career opportunities via social to expand the candidate search to your network and your followers' connections.
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An intentional social media strategy within the scope of your overall marketing plan will take your company to a new level of success where you can accomplish your long-term marketing and lead generation goals.